Mark Zandi

How could a once-obscure lending category unleash the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? How did the effects of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis spread around the globe? Faulty reasoning and greed created an environment that led up to the crisis, and laxity allowed it to spread. To avoid a recurrence, homeowners, investors and policymakers would do well to examine not only specific missteps, but also the deeper forces behind the crisis, including homeowner psychology, antiregulatory sentiment, and the technology that facilitates complex global lending. Based on his highly regarded book that exposed the roots of the subprime crisis, Financial Shock: Global Panic and Government Bailouts—How We Got Here and What Must Be Done to Fix It, Dr. Zandi helps audiences understand more deeply:

How mortgage lenders, investment bankers, builders, regulators, and the Federal Reserve caused this global disaster.

How homeowners and investors can protect themselves from financial shocks already on the horizon.

What policymakers need to do now to prevent a recurrence.

After a decade of emerging markets and economies dominating the global market, the tipping point has arrived: growth will begin to balance going forward.

Fiscal austerity and brinkmanship are diminishing. This sets the stage for U.S. turnaround as growth begins to accelerate. Combined with high global interest rates, slowing emerging market economies as well as a new breed of reform-minded emerging markets economies, a new equilibrium is being created. But, with a new equilibrium, new questions arise:

How will aggressive ECB and banking integration affect Europe?

For all its resources, can China truly hit its growth potential in the coming decade?

Can we depend on the current stability of commodity prices?