“We all argued that the crisis was multi-causal,” said Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

“We emphasized in particular the absence of effective regulation, the increase in leverage, the emergence of shadow banking, the mismanagement of risk by many financial institutions, and the strong external demand for U.S. Treasuries and similar assets as important factors,” he said. “We also concluded that monetary policy per se — narrowly interpreted as the low interest rate policy of the Fed after 2001 — was not likely a major factor.”

He said the report “is hitting many of the right notes.”

But Anil K. Kashyap, a business school economist at the University of Chicago, said he was troubled at the failure to reach a bipartisan consensus.

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1. DonGander wrote: Those of the Anarchist bent consistantly attack the symptoms rather than the disease because there is no correction there; they don’t want correction, they want power to bring down power. All those things listed in the article as complaints of weakness in the financial system are merely the symptoms. I’m no longer going to say that these people think incorrectly. I am now going to say that they think mis-leadingly. (Is that a word?) on January 28, 9:08 am | [comment link]

2. Sick & Tired of Nuance wrote: Nothing to worry about…just keep printing the money boys! January 28, 1:55 pm | [comment link]

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