by Claudio Grass
Gold and Liberty
It has been almost eight years since former U.S. President George W. Bush warned the world that “ without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold.” The government’s response to the crisis was a USD700 billion rescue package that would prevent U.S. banks from collapsing and encourage them to resume lending, which was soon to be followed by a series of Quantitative Easing (QE) packages injecting money into the economy. The rationale of government intervention was to boost spending, restore confidence in the market and revamp economic growth to everyone’s benefit – but did it succeed in doing so?