This is the name of the book

General Structure

A 3-5 page essay will be due on December 11th. You have significant discretion in how you construct your essay. If there is a particular subset of the material that intrigues you and you would like to offer an opinion on it, feel free to concentrate on one area of the book. If you wish to focus on multiple topics in the book then feel free to do this as well. All essays should start with a brief summary of the book/work, and then go into how Fed policy could influence (or did influence) things which your book addresses.

Questions to Consider

1) 2008 Crisis Books (Paulson, Lewis, Sorkin)

a. Where do you think the cracks in the system really began? Does it go all the way back to federal housing policy in the 1990s, or incentive misalignment for realtors to sell as many houses as they can without regard for if the resident can afford the mortgage, or credit availability, or something else? Was the buildup preventable (through legislation or Fed policy) or just another bubble in the U.S. economy due to irrational exuberance? Discuss.

b. What were some of the things that the Fed/Treasury did correctly around the crisis? What did they botch?

c. Since 2009, how has the Fed been operating? Who in particular (businesses, classes of people) do their policies benefit? Which asset classes have been affected the most?

d. Have the recent regulations fixed the systemic factors (risk) which brought us to the crisis in 2008? Will the next crisis be one-in-the-same or will it look completely different from the last one? Can Fed policy mitigate the next crisis before it occurs?