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Within a few months in 2008, household finances were crushed as asset values fell, millions of jobs were lost, countless credit cards were canceled, and thousands of homes were foreclosed on.

To the extent that bank panics interfere with normal flows of credit, they may affect the performance of the real economy.

Once our country is fully engulfed in a debt crisis, our economy will be torn apart, and every American will be a victim of the federal government's failure to prevent this disaster.

There is a basic lesson on financial crises that governments tend to wait too long, underestimate the risks, want to do too little. And it ultimately gets away from them, and they end up spending more money, causing much more damage to the economy.

The 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed have had devastating effects on the U.S. economy and millions of American lives. But the U.S. economy will emerge from its trauma stronger and widely restructured.

On Wall Street, financial crisis destroys jobs. Here in Washington, it creates them. The rest is just details.

The crisis and recession have led to very low interest rates, it is true, but these events have also destroyed jobs, hamstrung economic growth and led to sharp declines in the values of many homes and businesses.

The mortgage crisis is a clear instance of consumers who needed protection. There was predatory lending to people who didn't know what they were doing.

What I'm concerned about is endless borrowing, which is going to compromise our economy not only today but in the future. Because we know the decisions we make right now really dramatically impact us in the future, and the debt is literally getting out of our control.