NEW YORK -The on-line think tank, Big Think today launched "What Went Wrong?" an eight-week, Web-based educational series with leading economics experts collaborating to understand the root causes of the recent global financial crisis, in the interest of preventing yet another.

This ambitious and innovative initiative, sponsored by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, comes out of the urgent need to improve our understanding of the factors that led to the crisis and assess proposed reforms to avert new crises already looming.

The aims of this groundbreaking collaboration are to "expert-source" a uniquely authoritative and comprehensive educational resource on the lessons gleaned from the financial crisis and leverage their combined reach to expand the public dialogue about our best way forward. The content of the series will in turn be collected and highlighted on Big Think.

This week will feature John Allison, former CEO of BB&T:

· John A. Allison IV, Chairman of BB&T Corporation; Chairman and CEO of BB&T, (1989-2008 and Distinguished Professor of Practice, Wake Forest University School of Business

Excerpts:

· Allison: "In my career, Citigroup has failed three times, been bailed out by the government three times, and every time, they've gotten bigger and worse. There is a tremendous moral hazard to the government constantly keeping poor run institutions in business and it prevents a natural market correction process."

Other featured experts being interviewed include:

· Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF and former French Socialist Party Presidential Candidate

· Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and the William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; Author of recent bestseller, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

· Barney Frank, US Congressman from Massachusetts; Chair of House Financial Services Committee, (2007-Present); Long time advocate of government-sponsored housing

· Richard Shelby, US Senator from Alabama; Ranking Member on Senate Banking Committee; Senate Banking Committee Chair, (2003-2007);

· Andrew Ross Sorkin, Chief Mergers and Acquisitions Reporter and a Columnist, New York Times; Author of recent bestseller, Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System---and Themselves

· David Wessel, Economics Editor, Wall Street Journal and author of recent bestseller, In Fed We Trust: Bernanke's War on the Great Panic . Wessel is also the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for his economic journalism.

· John B. Taylor, Professor of Economics, Stanford University; Fellow, Hoover Institution; Undersecretary for International Affairs, U.S. Treasury Department (2001-2004); author of Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis and The Road Ahead for the Fed;

· Vernon L. Smith, 2002 Nobel laureate and Professor of Law and Economics, Chapman University; expert in experimental economics and asset bubbles.

· Chrystia Freeland, US Managing Editor, Financial Times; author of Sale of a Century: the inside story of the second Russian revolution

· Peter J. Wallison, Arthur Burns Fellow in Financial Studies, American Enterprise Institute; former General Counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department (1981-1985) and Member of Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009); Co-Chair of Pew Financial Reform Task Force (2009)

· R. Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Business and former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors (2001-2003)

· Matthew Bishop, US Bureau Chief, The Economist; author of the The Road from Ruin: How to Renew Capitalism and Put America Back on Top and Philanthrocapitalism

· Peter Thiel, President, Clarium Capital; Co-Founder of PayPal and venture capital firm, Founders Fund, with early investments in Facebook and LinkedIn;

· Marc Lasry, Chairman and Chief Executive, Avenue Capital; Advisory Board Member, Council on Foreign Relations

· Ernest Patrikis, Partner, White & Case; former General Counsel at AIG (1999-2006)

· Mark Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody's Economy.com

Participating Bloggers & Columnists

The participating bloggers contributing questions and analysis include:

· Economist's View - Mark Thoma, Professor of Economics, University of Oregon

· The New Republic's The Stash - Noam Scheiber

· The New Yorker's The Balance Sheet - James Surowiecki - Columnist, and author of bestseller The Wisdom of Crowds

· Marginal Revolution, - Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics, George Mason University

· Reuters Finance, Felix Salmon

· The American Prospect's Beat the Press, - Dean Baker, Professor of Economics, Bucknell University and Co-Director, Center for Economic Policy Research

· The Money Illusion - Scott Sumner, Professor of Economics, Bentley University

· Café Hayek - Russ Roberts, Professor of Economics, George Mason University and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution

· The Atlantic's Atlantic Business Channel - Dan Indiviglio

· Free Exchange / The Fly Bottle - Will Wilkinson, Research Fellow, Cato Institute

· The Big Questions - Steven Landsburg - Professor of Economics, University of Rochester and Columnist, Slate

· Econlog - Arnold Kling, Adjunct Professor of Economics, George Mason University and former employee of both Freddie Mac and the Federal Reserve

· The Atlantic's Asymmetrical Information - Megan McArdle, Managing Editor, The Atlantic

· Causes of the Crisis - Jeff Friedman, Visiting Professor of Political Science, University of Texas and Founding Editor, Critical Review,

· National Review's The Corner / The American Scene - Jim Manzi - Chief Executive Officer, Applied Predictive Technologies

· The Economist's Free Exchange/The Bellows - Ryan Avent, Online Editor, The Economist

· Naked Capitalism - Yves Smith, President of Aurora Advisors, and former employee of both Goldman Sachs and McKinsey & Co.

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