Crisis and Intervention
Lessons From the Financial Meltdown and Recession
 The global economy has emerged from a truly exceptional event—the first synchronized global recession since the Second World War. What’s more, the recession was caused by a financial crisis that was itself unprecedented in scale.
The Conference Board of Canada’s Forecasting and Analysis team studied the crisis. The result is Crisis and Intervention: Lessons From the Financial Meltdown and Recession—a book that describes what caused the meltdown and resulting global recession, and identifies 10 key lessons. These insights serve as a valuable guide for leaders in Canada and around the world—in business, government, labour, academia, the media—who need to know what caused the global crash … and what can be done to prevent another.
Lessons
| Lesson 1: Sound Fiscal Policy Is Key to Keeping the Economy Afloat in Hard Times | | Lesson 6: “Too Big to Fail” Means Too Big | | Lesson 2: Recession Only Delayed the Inevitable Workplace Shortages | | Lesson 7: Integrative Trade Can Pull Us Down and Up | | Lesson 3: The Financial Sector is Unique and Needs New Standards | | Lesson 8: Local Governments Can’t Provide the Solution | | Lesson 4: Public Sector Financial Institutions Prove Their Worth | | Lesson 9: Psychology Matters to How a Recession Unfolds | | Lesson 5: Global Coordination Was Critical to a Speedy Recovery | | Lesson 10: The Fiscal Bills Will Eventually Have to Be Paid |
From the Editor
In the autumn of 2009, the global economy was beginning to emerge from a truly exceptional event, the first synchronized global recession since the Second World War. The recession was caused by a financial crisis that was unprecedented in scale (although not unprecedented in type—there have been many other financial crises since the emergence of capitalism). It struck me as an analyst and observer of the Canadian, North American, and global economies that some important lessons could be learned from what we had come through—the global financial crisis and recession of 2008–09. I invited (or perhaps more accurately, challenged) my colleagues—members of the excellent team of economists at The Conference Board of Canada—to work with me on a project that would define what those lessons are. Our aim was to share these observations and lessons with our client base in Canadian businesses, governments, academia, and elsewhere. This book is the result. 
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