John Allison

Former BB&T Chairman John Allison said the American economy would be doing better today if the federal government had not bailed out failing banks and auto companies during the 2008 financial crisis.

"Even with the chaos of 2008, we'd be a lot better off today if we had let markets correct themselves," Allison told hundreds of UTC students and faculty at the Burkett Miller Distinguished Lecture Monday. "We might have been worse in the short term, but we'd have a much higher growth rate and much lower unemployment rate today because what corrections are about are reallocating resources to people that use them properly."