The Economy by Decade: The 2000s and The Great Recession

The 2000s were so important, we needed a Part 2 to tackle the Great Recession. We unpack how easy credit, soaring housing prices, risky lending, and the financial system combined to create the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Along the way, we debate whether the government bailouts were the right call and talk about the long-term effects that still shape housing, lending, higher education, and personal finance today.

In this episode, we talk about:

* What caused the Great Recession and why there wasn’t one single culprit

* The housing bubble, subprime mortgages, and why banks kept lending

* Whether TARP and the bank bailouts were unpopular necessities or policy mistakes

* How the recession permanently changed lending, mortgages, and borrowing

* Why the effects of 2008 still show up today through demographics, higher education, and attitudes toward debt

Check out the first part of this conversation when we unpacked the rest of the 2000s:

This Week’s Drinks 🍻

We may be recording on the same day, but that doesn’t mean the drinks need to stay the same. Brian stuck with his cocktail tour of the decade by switching from a mojito to a Cosmopolitan. In contrast, Jadrian switched from his Pickle PBR to something a little more local: Richmond Lager from Hardywood Brewery. Matt stuck with his Summer Shred Hazy IPA from Ever Grain Brewing.

Name That Stat 📊

We stuck with the 2000s themes for our stats this week with data on the amount of value that was destroyed when Enron collapsed, the number of votes that decided the 2000 presidential election in Florida, and the number of banks that failed during 2008. The stats for this week’s episode help frame just how unusual the decade really was.