Government Response To Financial Constraints

Authors Jones and McCaffery provide perspectives on Canadian government actions to manage financial contingency and restraint. Although the primary focus is on provincial government, attention is also paid to the actions of the federal government. The authors begin by presenting a theoretical framework through which government financial restraint management may be evaluated. In the following chapters, criteria derived from this framework are then applied to provincial government financial stress and restraint management actions. They examine the provincial economic base, revenue and expenditure trends, and financial condition. In particular, annual and cumulative budget deficits and debt loads are reviewed as indicators of the degree of financial stress faced by provincial governments. Actions taken by provinces to increase revenues and productivity, and to control expenditures, are reviewed from the early 1970s to 1987, with emphasis on the period 1983-1987. A comparison of financial stress management in the Province of Ontario and the State of California is also presented, and this comparative approach is continued in a chapter on Canadian federal government financial stress management. Finally, Canadian federal efforts to institute budget control under the Policy and Expenditure Management system are compared to budget control approaches utilized by the U.S. federal government. This unique study will improve our understanding of how the Canadian provincial and federal governments manage budgeting and financial stress. Both for the increased knowledge it offers of Canadian fiscal practices and for the insight into our own government's fiscal difficulties, scholars and students of Canadian studies, political science, public policy and administration, and economics will want to read Government Response to Financial Constraints.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.

How should we understand the federal government's response to the financial crisis? The government's team, largely staffed by investment bankers, pushed the limits of its statutory authority to authorize an ad hoc series of deals designed to mitigate that crisis. It then decided to seek comprehensive legislation that, as it turned out, paved the way for more deals. The result has not been particularly coherent, but it has married transactional practice to administrative law. In fact, we think that regulation by deal provides an organizing principle, albeit a loose one, to the government's response to the financial crisis. Dealmakers use contract to avoid some legal constraints, and often prefer to focus on arms-length negotiation, rather than regulatory authorization, as the source of legitimacy for their actions, though the law does provide a structure to their deals. They also do not always take the long view or place value on consistency, instead preferring to complete the latest deal at hand and move to the next transaction. In this paper, we offer a first look at the history of the financial crisis from the fall of Bear Stearns up to, and including, the initial implementation of the Economic Emergency Stability Act of 2008. We analyze in depth each deal the government concluded, and how it justified those deals within the constraints of the law, using its authority to sometimes stretch but never truly break that law. We consider what the government's response so far means for transactional and administrative law scholarship, as well as some of the broader implications of crisis governance by deal.

Crisis and Response: An FDIC History, 2008¿2013 reviews the experience of the FDIC during a period in which the agency was confronted with two interconnected and overlapping crises¿first, the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, and second, a banking crisis that began in 2008 and continued until 2013. The history examines the FDIC¿s response, contributes to an understanding of what occurred, and shares lessons from the agency¿s experience.

There is no precise definition of "financial crisis", but a common view is that disruptions in financial markets rise to the level of a crisis when the flow of credit to households and businesses is constrained and the real economy of goods and services is adversely affected. Since mid-2007, governments have tried with limited success to keep downturn in U.S. sub-prime housing from developing into such a crisis. In response to the ongoing financial turmoil, the federal government intervened financially with private corporations on a large scale that resulted in the government receiving significant debt and equity considerations three times since the beginning of 2008. On October 3rd 2008, the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) was signed into law, giving Treasury the option of purchasing or insuring up to $700 billion of assets from financial firms. This book looks at the global financial crisis here and abroad and the government interventions to stave off economic emergencies. This book consists of public domain documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

This book presents a notable group of macroeconomists who describe the unprecedented events and often extraordinary policies put in place to limit the economic damage suffered during the Great Recession and then to put the economy back on track. Contributers include Barry Eichengreen; Gary Burtless; Donald Kohn; Laurence Ball, J. Bradford DeLong, and Lawrence H. Summers; and Kathryn M.E. Dominguez.

Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

When the end of life makes its inevitable appearance, people should be able to expect reliable, humane, and effective caregiving. Yet too many dying people suffer unnecessarily. While an "overtreated" dying is feared, untreated pain or emotional abandonment are equally frightening. Approaching Death reflects a wide-ranging effort to understand what we know about care at the end of life, what we have yet to learn, and what we know but do not adequately apply. It seeks to build understanding of what constitutes good care for the dying and offers recommendations to decisionmakers that address specific barriers to achieving good care. This volume offers a profile of when, where, and how Americans die. It examines the dimensions of caring at the end of life: Determining diagnosis and prognosis and communicating these to patient and family. Establishing clinical and personal goals. Matching physical, psychological, spiritual, and practical care strategies to the patient's values and circumstances. Approaching Death considers the dying experience in hospitals, nursing homes, and other settings and the role of interdisciplinary teams and managed care. It offers perspectives on quality measurement and improvement, the role of practice guidelines, cost concerns, and legal issues such as assisted suicide. The book proposes how health professionals can become better prepared to care well for those who are dying and to understand that these are not patients for whom "nothing can be done."

Traditionally, economics training in public finances has focused more on tax than public expenditure issues, and within expenditure, more on policy considerations than the more mundane matters of public expenditure management. For many years, the IMF's Public Expenditure Management Division has answered specific questions raised by fiscal economists on such missions. Based on this experience, these guidelines arose from the need to provide a general overview of the principles and practices observed in three key aspects of public expenditure management: budget preparation, budget execution, and cash planning. For each aspect of public expenditure management, the guidelines identify separately the differing practices in four groups of countries - the francophone systems, the Commonwealth systems, Latin America, and those in the transition economies. Edited by Barry H. Potter and Jack Diamond, this publication is intended for a general fiscal, or a general budget, advisor interested in the macroeconomic dimension of public expenditure management.