Most people know virtually no financial history, so when we have a financial crisis, it seems like it has never happened before. But it has, again and again. As Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, remarked: "About every ten years, we have the biggest crisis in 50 years." 

We simply have to face the fact that banking is fundamentally risky. As I decided long ago when working in banks, the reason we needed to wear dark suits and have classic buildings was to look conservative in order to offset the real riskiness of what we were doing. 

In a new book entitled “Financing Failure: A Century of Bailouts,” Vern McKinley provides the most detailed account yet of the government’s decision-making process during these momentous events.

Under the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law, large nonbank firms may be declared systemically important because their failure will cause a systemic breakdown. In effect, this amounts to a government statement that these firms are too big to fail.

What will happen to housing, mortgages and sovereign debt as we keep struggling with these problems, both in the United States and in Europe? What should happen? An expert panel will debate these and other issues around the current financial and economic dilemmas.

If everything goes just right--which is improbable--we may see signs of an economic recovery by the dawn of the new millennium.

If everything goes just right--which is improbable--we may see signs of an economic recovery by the dawn of the new millennium.

Panelists will discuss the recent series of government interventions and bailouts triggered by the credit crunch and financial panic of 2008.