The financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007 was an extraordinarily complex event with multiple causes.

The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.

Importantly, in the 1930s, in the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve, despite its mandate, was quite passive and, as a result, financial crisis became very severe, lasted essentially from 1929 to 1933.

I and others were mistaken early on in saying that the subprime crisis would be contained. The causal relationship between the housing problem and the broad financial system was very complex and difficult to predict.

Managing and navigating through a financial crisis is no fun at all.

There are downsides to implicitly trusting banks, as the 2008 financial crisis showed.