Credit markets have recovered, although they still reflect massive government financial intervention. The financial panic of 2008 and 2009 has passed, though now bank failures are notably increasing. The net worth of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is dropping, and estimates for its deficit are growing, but its obligations are ultimately U.S. Treasury obligations. Average house prices seem to be stabilizing, but commercial real estate prices are dropping. Huge losses from the deflation of the great twenty-first-century bubble have been recognized or realized, and though more remain, financial markets have regained their appetite for risk.

At this event, our expert Deflating Bubble panel will define the lessons of the whole twenty-first-century financial experience and make related recommendations for future financial policy. Speakers will include AEI economists Desmond Lachman and John H. Makin; New York University professor of economics Nouriel Roubini; R. Christopher Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics; and Thomas Zimmerman, managing director at UBS Investment Bank. AEI resident fellow Alex J. Pollock will moderate.