The massive and multifaceted policy responses to the financial crisis and Great Recession — ranging from traditional fiscal stimulus to tools that policymakers invented on the fly — dramatically reduced the severity and length of the meltdown that began in 2008.
Source: The Financial Crisis: Lessons for the Next One | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
This is the first systemic analysis I’ve seen that shows how beneficial the actions taken in the wake of the 2007-2009 recession were. This is for those of you out there who rail against bailouts… without them, things would have been much worse for us all.