Within a few months in 2008, household finances were crushed as asset values fell, millions of jobs were lost, countless credit cards were canceled, and thousands of homes were foreclosed on.
When Xi Jinping came to power, there were a series of hints that market-based capitalism would be allowed to move forward under his leadership. At the first real threat, they've fallen over themselves to impose government control.
We live in an era where the global capital markets are the super power in the world, and when they move against you as they've moved against Russia, as we've all seen in the ruble, there's nothing that can stop that.
The United States is much further along because its financial crisis struck three years before Europe's, in 2008, causing headwinds that have pressured it ever since.
The idea that America, whose oil production has been declining for the past 40 years, is now on track to become the world's biggest producer by 2015 is still hard to grasp.
The 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed have had devastating effects on the U.S. economy and millions of American lives. But the U.S. economy will emerge from its trauma stronger and widely restructured.
The 2008 economic crisis and Great Recession forced widespread restructuring throughout the U.S. economy - not unlike a company gritting its teeth through a lifesaving bankruptcy.
Reasonable mergers generate substantial synergies, so that provides for earnings and cash-flow growth even if it doesn't provide for revenue growth, and I think that's a big driver.
In September 2008, the overleveraged and undermanaged U.S. banking system suffered a terrifying collapse. And that, in turn, nearly took the whole country down.
If a lending institution is faced with bids for a package of toxic assets that are less than the carrying value of those assets, the sale of those assets would trigger a further loss and reduce the underlying capital of the institution.
China is beginning to act more like a world citizen. We need China to be more active on the world stage. For example, we should want China to be a bigger participant and a bigger shareholder in the IMF. We should want it to be an even more active participant in the G8 and G20.
