James Galbraith

The bursting of the housing and credit bubbles has left the United States with a huge debt overhang.  As a result of the buildup of private sector debt and the economic crisis, households and firms are finding it difficult to service debt and lay a foundation for a sustainable recovery. 

New America Foundation's Economic Growth Program hosted leading economists and public intellectuals to discuss the following questions:

The home foreclosure crisis slamming into the nation's neighborhoods is having the effect of about "one Hurricane Katrina per month," James K. Galbraith, an economist with the University of Texas at Austin, said Friday at a forum examining the credit crisis.

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005, nearly 275,000 Gulf Coast residents were forced to move into group shelters, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Economists who recently completed a study for the… more