Notes on the Financial Crisis and Bailout of 2008

This paper provides an overview of the financial crisis of 2008 and the public policies adopted to address the crisis within the United States.The first half of the paper suggests that the crisis was not a complete surprise, but reflects mistakes in regulations and other policies in the past decade or so, especially with respect to housing and financial markets. The second half of the paper analyzes the effects and efficacy of the polices adopted in the last few months to address the financial crisis.Although the paper is still in quot;note formquot; it provides a useful overview of the problems and efforts to ameliorate the problem that are not otherwise available to the best of my knowledge.An executive summary appears at the end of the notes