Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power

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Roger Lowenstein’s perceptive The End of Wall Street (New York: Penguin Press, 2010) contains the following telling data regarding the overall social and economic consequences of the self-induced 2008–2009 financial crisis:

Average deficits of G-20 nations increased from 1% to 8%. (294).

By 2009, each American share of the national debt was $24,000—$2,500 of which was debt to China (294).

America’s total national wealth decreased from $64 trillion to $51 trillion (284).

America’s unemployment rate reached 10.2%. (284).

The United States lost 8 million jobs (284).

Mortgage foreclosures increased from 74,000 a month in 2005 to 280,000 a month in the summer of 2008, and a high of 360,000 in July 2009 (147, 283).

Banks failed at a rate of three per week in 2009 (282).

During the spring of 2009, 15 million American families owed more on their mortgages than their homes were worth (282).

There was a total GDP contraction of 3.8%—the biggest contraction since post-WWII demobilization (282).

America experienced its longest recession since the 1930s (282).

Stocks fell 57%—the biggest drop since the Great Depression (281)