Holistic coverage

Over the past year or so, a great portion of cyberspace has been devoted in one way or another to the financial crisis. Some of these Web sites have been featured in Virtual Fed. However, few have covered the whole story; most have focused instead on why the crisis happened, how the Fed responded, how it will change financial policy in the future or some other aspect. Fortunately, the San Francisco Fed has now developed a new Web site that looks at the financial crisis from all of these angles.

The Economy: Crisis & Response is an attempt to provide coverage of the topic that is exhaustive but not exhausting. It tells the story with a step-by-step narrative, where each step is mercifully brief, written in plain English and illustrated with dozens of informative graphics. The site also serves as an information clearinghouse, aggregating news and research on the crisis from across the Fed system, along with speeches from Fed governors and Reserve Bank presidents. For more, go to frbsf.org/econanswers.