Counting Backwards from the US Financial Crisis: On Economists, the Protective State, and “Not Using the Power of the Crown”
Scholar in Residence Lecture I
- Date: May 28, 2024
- Time: 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Bașak Kuș
- Location: Cologne
- Contact: info@mpifg.de
![Counting Backwards from the US Financial Crisis: On Economists, the Protective State, and “Not Using the Power of the Crown” Counting Backwards from the US Financial Crisis: On Economists, the Protective State, and “Not Using the Power of the Crown”](/event_images/37139-1710853553.jpeg)
In her lecture series as this year’s MPIfG Scholar in Residence, Bașak Kuș from Wesleyan University will share insights into how governments conceptualize and mitigate risk, and the significant role that economists and economistic reasoning play in shaping these processes – essential analysis for understanding the foundations of the crises that mark our times, from finance to climate, ultimately extending to the crisis of democracy.
“As a scholar of the Great Depression, I honestly believe that September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression,” Bernanke remarked in 2014, his last year as chairman of the Federal Reserve. By the time the crisis was deemed over, more than 300 banks had failed, 10 million houses had entered foreclosure, roughly 8 million jobs had disappeared, and over 20 percent of Americans had found themselves with a negative net worth.