This dissertation is a reaction to the public policy failures that culminated in, prolonged, and exacerbated the 2008 financial crisis in the United States. Between the winter of 2007 and the summer of 2009, the US private economy contracted severely. As of the summer of 2014, after a five-year recovery period, employment losses have been restored, but employment growth has not returned the US to its pre-crisis trend. This outcome is not the effect of a transient deviation that regularly happ...