Watch the following video and respond to the questions below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImQrUjlyHUg (1) What is your opinion of Mark Pagel's explanation of language and humanity? (i.e., do you think his explanation of the evolution of language adequately addresses how humans have been impacted by the ability to communicate). (2) How do you think "social learning" has influenced humanity? (think of the good and bad). (3) Are there any additional thoughts that came to mind as you were watching this video? Don’t Look Back in Anger at Bailouts and Stimulus By Alan S. Blinder And Mark Zandi The Wall Street Journal Oct. 15, 2015 6:32 p.m. ET Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in an Oct. 6 interview on the Fox Business Network. PHOTO: RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS Without the emergency measures of 2008-09, the U.S. economy would be far worse off today. The publicity surrounding former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s memoir prompts a look-back at the stunning array of policy responses promulgated by the Fed, Congress and two administrations to avert catastrophe during the financial crisis in 2008-09. This is important because many of these initiatives haven’t aged well in the eyes of politicians and the public. TARP, fiscal stimulus, quantitative easing and auto bailout remain dirty words to many people who increasingly blame them for prolonging the Great Recession and the slow pace of recovery. But in a study released Thursday for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, we found the reverse to be true: These extraordinary policies ended the crisis and jump-started an economic recovery that is stronger in the U.S. than in most countries. Specifically, we estimate that: • The peak-to-trough decline in real gross domestic product, which was barely more than 4%, would have been close to a stunning 14%. • The contraction would have lasted three years, more than twice as long as it did. Don’t Look Back in Anger at Bailouts and Stimulus By Alan S. Blinder And Mark Zandi The Wall Street Journal Oct. 15, 2015 6:32 p.m. ET • More than 17 million jobs would have been lost, about twice the actual number. • Unemployment would have peaked at just under 16%, rather than at 10%. • The federal budget deficit would have ballooned to $2.8 trillion, equal to 18% of GDP, compared with its actual peak of 10%. • Today’s economy would be far weaker than it is—with real GDP about $800 billion lower, 3.6 million fewer jobs, and unemployment still at 7.6%. The overwhelming nature of the fiscal and monetary policy responses is the main reason we didn’t suffer a much-worse fate. Yet history is in danger of giving the powerful 2008-09 responses a misguided Bronx cheer. Start with TARP. The Troubled Asset Relief Program was deeply unpopular in part because it was so large—a $700 billion bailout fund—and aimed primarily at “Wall Street.” It felt wrong to bail out guilty parties, and many.

1. Watch the following video and respond to the questions below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImQrUjlyHUg
(1) What is your opinion of Mark Pagel's explanation of
language and humanity? (i.e., do you think his explanation of
the evolution of language adequately addresses how humans
have been impacted by the ability to communicate).
(2) How do you think "social learning" has influenced
humanity? (think of the good and bad).
(3) Are there any additional thoughts that came to mind as you
were watching this video?
Don’t Look Back in Anger at Bailouts and Stimulus
By Alan S. Blinder And Mark Zandi
The Wall Street Journal
Oct. 15, 2015 6:32 p.m. ET
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in an Oct. 6
interview on the Fox Business Network. PHOTO:
RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Without the emergency measures of 2008-09, the U.S.
economy would be far worse off today.
The publicity surrounding former Federal Reserve Chairman

2. Ben Bernanke’s memoir prompts a
look-back at the stunning array of policy responses promulgated
by the Fed, Congress and two
administrations to avert catastrophe during the financial crisis
in 2008-09. This is important
because many of these initiatives haven’t aged well in the eyes
of politicians and the public.
TARP, fiscal stimulus, quantitative easing and auto bailout
remain dirty words to many people
who increasingly blame them for prolonging the Great
Recession and the slow pace of recovery.
But in a study released Thursday for the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, we found the
reverse to be true: These extraordinary policies ended the crisis
and jump-started an economic
recovery that is stronger in the U.S. than in most countries.
Specifically, we estimate that:
• The peak-to-trough decline in real gross domestic product,
which was barely more than 4%,
would have been close to a stunning 14%.
• The contraction would have lasted three years, more than
twice as long as it did.
Don’t Look Back in Anger at Bailouts and Stimulus
By Alan S. Blinder And Mark Zandi
The Wall Street Journal
Oct. 15, 2015 6:32 p.m. ET

3. • More than 17 million jobs would have been lost, about twice
the actual number.
• Unemployment would have peaked at just under 16%, rather
than at 10%.
• The federal budget deficit would have ballooned to $2.8
trillion, equal to 18% of GDP,
compared with its actual peak of 10%.
• Today’s economy would be far weaker than it is—with real
GDP about $800 billion lower, 3.6
million fewer jobs, and unemployment still at 7.6%.
The overwhelming nature of the fiscal and monetary policy
responses is the main reason we
didn’t suffer a much-worse fate. Yet history is in danger of
giving the powerful 2008-09
responses a misguided Bronx cheer.
Start with TARP. The Troubled Asset Relief Program was
deeply unpopular in part because it
was so large—a $700 billion bailout fund—and aimed primarily
at “Wall Street.” It felt wrong to
bail out guilty parties, and many Americans still feel that way.
But TARP’s huge scale helped
restore confidence and stabilize the financial system. One
result: Treasury never needed to
deploy the full $700 billion.
Wall Street bailouts will never be popular. But one lesson from
the financial crisis is that,
however distasteful, stabilizing the financial system is a critical
first step toward stabilizing the
economy. If households and businesses cannot get credit, the
economy will suffocate.

4. Of course, Wall Street should pay for its errors and for the
assistance it receives. But TARP
accomplished precisely that. While shareholders in financial
institutions suffered huge losses,
taxpayers made a tidy profit on the deal.
Bailing out and Chrysler was a tougher call, since it seemed a
stretch to argue that the auto
industry’s collapse posed an existential threat to the broader
economy. Yet the weak economy
in 2008-09 was ill-equipped to withstand another body blow.
Without the rescue, the auto
makers probably would have been liquidated, costing the
economy millions more lost jobs.
Critics are right to worry that bailouts for Wall Street and car
companies exacerbate so-called
moral hazard, which could lead to excessive risk-taking in the
future. But moral hazard must not
be viewed as a show stopper. Rather, bailouts pose trade-offs—
trading the potential costs of
moral hazard in the future against mitigating a catastrophe now.
That is why it was important, after the crisis passed, to install
new policies that limit the potential
for subsequent opportunistic behavior. Doing so was one of the
guiding principles of the Dodd-
Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed
into law in 2010.
Fiscal stimulus—tax cuts and government spending increases
that jump-started the recovery—
wasn’t much more popular than TARP in some quarters. But it
was no coincidence that the
Great Recession ended in June 2009, just four months after the

5. Recovery Act’s nearly $800
billion-plus stimulus package was passed.
Don’t Look Back in Anger at Bailouts and Stimulus
By Alan S. Blinder And Mark Zandi
The Wall Street Journal
Oct. 15, 2015 6:32 p.m. ET
Logic dictates that the size of any stimulus be proportional to
the expected decline in economic
activity—which was enormous in the Great Recession. The
Recovery Act and other stimulus
measures were costly to taxpayers, and thus much-maligned.
But the slump would have been
much deeper without them.
The Federal Reserve has also come under attack for its
unprecedented actions, especially its
quantitative easing or bond-buying programs. Yet QE lowered
long-term interest rates and
boosted stock and housing prices—all to the economy’s benefit.
Yes, QE has possible negative
side-effects, but for the most part they have yet to materialize.
Policy makers who botched the regulatory job before the crisis
and shifted to fiscal restraint
prematurely in 2011 can hardly be considered flawless. Yet one
major reason why the U.S.
economy has outperformed the plodding European and Japanese
economies is the timely,
massive and unprecedented responses of U.S. policy makers in
2008-09. So let’s get the

6. history right.
Mr. Blinder is a professor of economics and public affairs at
Princeton and a former Federal
Reserve vice chairman. Mr. Zandi is chief economist at
Analytics Inc.