Pethokoukis: Fed Caused Great Recession, Not Bushonomics

So says a new book by Robert Hetzel, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. James Pethokoukis at AEI gets in the economic weeds so we don't have to.  He writes:

The president argues that it was the unchecked, reckless, casino capitalism of the George W. Bush years — bank deregulation, tax cuts for the rich — that lead to the nation’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. And if Mitt Romney is elected in November, the Republican will bring those policies right back, risking another financial collapse.

But a book by Robert Hetzel, a senior economist at Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, says it wasn’t Bushonomics or greedy bankers or broken markets that caused the Great Recession. In The Great Recession: Market Failure or Policy Failure, Hetzel pins the blame squarely on the Federal Reserve and Team Bernanke.