Forgiving mortgages could’ve tempered Great Recession

Had the U.S. government put more emphasis on alleviating homeowner debt, 2008 could have been a run-of-the-mill recession instead of the cataclysm it turned out to be.

That’s the argument Atif Mian of Princeton University and Amir Sufi of the University of Chicago make in an upcoming book, notes the New York Times.

Read: U.S. heading for crisis

The economists say Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner fundamentally misjudged the cure to the credit crisis.

“[They] focus[ed] on preserving the financial system without addressing what the authors regard as the underlying and more important problem of excessive household debt. They say the recovery remains painfully sluggish as a result,” the NYT report explains.

Read more here.

Also read:

Fund managers question recovery’s strength

Wall Street warms to new derivatives rule

Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.