Alan S. Blinder earned his B.A. at Princeton University, his M.A. at the London School of Economics and Ph.D. at MIT. He teaches at Princeton University and is the author of the best seller, After the Music Stopped, about the financial crisis and its aftermath. Dr. Blinder served on President Clinton's first Council of Economic Advisers and then as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, thereby playing a role in formulating both the fiscal and monetary policies of the 1990s. Dr. Blinder, now a regular columnist for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, has written newspaper and magazine columns on economic policy for more than thirty years. He is a past Vice President and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association.