Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Although no one can yet predict the full implications of the financial crisis, it may have a silver lining for the U.S. if it is able to maintain its position of power while learning valuable lessons in humility. In the future, the U.S. may be more cautious about taking on massive debt, less reckless with its military spending, and more willing to cooperate on global problems.
The United States is witnessing, at least temporarily, the collapse of effective liquidity for the complex financial instruments that have long been used to conduct transactions. But the real crisis is a Keynesian downward spiral, whereby declining consumption and declining investment reinforce each other.
As the economic crisis unfolds, the drama of impending calamity has spurred politicians to take action without fully understanding the crisis. Nobody knows if the bailout will work, and moreover, it fails to address any of the underlying economic problems that we face. Moving forward, our leaders must exercise much more thought and caution in addressing this wide array of economic challenges.
While the attacks of September 11, 2001 scarred the U.S. deeply, the current financial crisis may prove to have more lasting ramifications. Historians are more likely to see the economic crisis as a true global watershed: as the era of pure neoliberal economics abruptly ends, the U.S. must now decide whether to embrace a new American capitalism and accept greater government involvement.
While the attacks of September 11, 2001 scarred the U.S. deeply, the current financial crisis may prove to have more lasting ramifications than 9/11. Historians are more likely to see the economic crisis as a true global watershed: as the era of pure neoliberal economics abruptly ends, the U.S. must now decide whether to embrace a new American capitalism and accept greater government involvement.
Jessica T. Mathews, Tom Burke and Laurence Tubiana on what the EU and the U.S. need to do to address climate change.
Panel of experts, including Kemal Dervis, on the global implications of the financial crisis.
Expectations are running high for major changes in the next U.S. administration's foreign policy, but how much change is likely, and will it be enough to close the gap between America and the world? Top experts from the Carnegie Endowment and elsewhere discussed this question during a two-day conference in Brussels.
Panel discussion on the expectations of China and India of the next U.S. president, and the rising importance of those expectations.
As the U.S. government steps in to rescue the financial system, Latin American leaders are using the crisis to justify their own leftist policies, claiming the United States' free-market approach has collapsed. But some U.S. scholars see a middle ground; future regulation may help guide markets on the national and even the global stage, without completely departing from the free market system.