(Mary Altaffer/AP)Ten years ago, we were hit by the biggest financial shock in world history, worse even than the Great Depression. The beating heart of the economy — the financial system — had stopped worldwide. This was going to be a nasty, brutish and long recession, even if the financial system hadn’t been hit by a panic that made the Great Depression look relatively tame by comparison. A modern economy just can’t function without a financial system to move money where it’s needed. Indeed, the stimulus was a mere $700 billion when Christina Romer, an adviser to President Barack Obama, estimated that the economy needed $1.8 trillion of help.

Source: Washington Post September 15, 2018 20:37 UTC