2008 Financial Crisis: Iceland's Then & Now Essay examples

Because of this downfall of the housing market, the U.S. economy fell along with other markets across the country. Homeowners had mortgages higher than what their homes were valued at, the decline in housing prices caused many people to default on their mortgages which caused the values of mortgage backed securities and CDO’s to collapse, leaving banks and their financial institutions holding those securities with a lower value of

In 2008 the United States economy faced it most serious economic downturn since the great depression. This crisis began in 2006 when the subprime mortgage market showed an increase in mortgage defaults. This would lead to the decline of the U.S. housing market after a decade of high growth. The problems in the mortgage market where able to spread to other sectors of the economy especially in financial markets because of Collateralized Mortgage Obligations or CMOs. CMOs where mortgage backed securities that where given out by investment banks and where not regulated by the government. These securities fell as did mortgages due to increasing default rates. Because of CMOs companies bought Credit Default swaps or CDSs. These CDSs where nominally

In 2008, the United States went through one of the most significant economical period in history. The housing market and banks started to fail and people were unable to pay off their loans on the houses. This lead to a giant need for government intervention in determining which investment banks and corporations were worthy of being considered “too big to fail”. If they were in this category, the government would supply them with the funds necessary to not go bankrupt. Most of the time, the corporations would put this money towards consolidating their balance sheets, rather than solving the problems. This paper looks in depth into the 2008 financial crisis: the course

Once the US housing market collapsed, it created a credit crisis and crunch in the wider financial markets. Due to the complexity of CDOs many people had no idea how much they were really worth. Many of the CDOS were worthless and it was almost impossible to find the value of them (7). This led to a moral hazard problem whereby there was an overall caution of banks because many had no idea if they were even bankrupt. Inevitably, the interbank lending system crumbled whereby some banks stopped lending to each other and to corporations altogether or only lent with very high interest rates. Many banks who relied on interbank lending for money were heavily affected by this including Northern Rock. Inevitably, depositors of these banks become dubious of their banks financial situation and were provoked into withdrawing their money.

The 2008 financial crisis and the recession that followed were the most severe the United States ever had. The 2008 financial crisis must be discuss as well as what the government did during the recession which led to the slow recovery. First, there are three major types of financial crisis: banking, debt and currency however there is no universal definition of a financial crisis. The 2008 financial crisis was a banking crisis, it actually started in 2007. Many experts on financial crisis have defined a banking crisis as “severe stress on the financial system, such as runs on financial institutions or large-scale government assistance to the financial sector” (Sanders 11). The reason for the 2008 financial crisis and the recession which followed started wat before experts realize there were issues in the financial sector. The government must intervene in a financial crisis to avert disruption of the

The beginning of the crisis is marked as the downfall of Bear Stearns Financial. The company, with a triple A rating, was sidelined with problems of lack of cash flow, and a piling up of unpaid debts on housing mortgages. Bear Stearns invested heavily in these mortgages, because they were lucrative so long as the loans were being paid off. Foreclosures did not begin to pile up until after the 2005-2006 years of mass investment in the housing boom had already seeped into every corner of the United States. The first feeling of a tremble in the market caused Bear Stearn's stock to plummet, and the

The 2008 financial crisis led to numerous mortgage foreclosure rates (Angelides et al, 2011). Many mortgage companies filed for bankruptcy and this because many of them were running under drastic losses. Financial institutions were unable to lend money because they were operating under losses and this slowed down the economic activities. This unease led central banks to take relevant action to provide funds in order to encourage lending and also to reestablish faith in the commercial paper markets ( United States. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission , 2010). Not only did the central banks help in relieving the crisis, the federal government was involved in helping the financial institutions by assuming major additional financial commitments. Federal government funded financial institutions dealing with mortgage purchasing and repackaging, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were declared bankrupt. Alongside the two government funded institutions that were declared bankrupt, several other main investment banks, insurance companies, and commercial banks tied to the real-estate lending were

In his book, “Diary of a very bad year: Confessions of an anonymous hedge fund manager”, Keith Gessen provides a captivating, entertaining and a shocking account of the 2008 financial crisis. The 2008 financial crisis is described as the deepest dives and the steepest recovery of a catastrophic mortgage crisis. The analysis will incorporate the “Efficient market hypothesis.” In addition, the analysis explains the concept of “financialization of markets.” The confessions of the hedge fund manager debunk the theory of rational markets. In addition, rational reasoning is a trait certainly absent in the financial sector. The absence of logical reasoning in the financial sector is to be blamed for leading the economy down the path of utter chaos and destruction instead of steering towards a more prosperous, less economically fickle future. Lastly, examine the role of the government in bailing out the financial sector.

On September 15th 2008, the investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. It was, and still is, the biggest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history , with Lehman’s holding $691 billion in assets at the time. The event was the catalyst for the current financial crisis. By the end of trading that day, $700bn had been wiped off the global stock markets. The Dow Jones had plummeted 500 points, its biggest drop since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 . Despite rumours and knowledge that Lehman’s was struggling, with its share price dropping daily, the huge drop in the financial markets was due to the huge shock. No-one had been expecting this, as it was anticipated

The situation led to the surging inflation cases in the country, lack of capital finances to support new business startups, recession/depression, and unemployment since most companies laid off their employees after closing down their businesses. Consequently, the situation spread all over the word with most governments forced to intervene and bailout some of their financial institutions to manage the crisis. In the American context, what worsened the situation was high expectation of the mortgage lenders who expected huge profits from their clients after full recovery of the loans.

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. With $639 billion in assets and $619 billion in debt, Lehman 's bankruptcy filing was the largest in history, as its assets far surpassed those of previous bankrupt giants such as WorldCom and Enron. Lehman was the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank at the time of its collapse, with 25,000 employees worldwide. The consequences for the world economy were extreme. Lehman’s ' fall contributed to a loss of confidence in other banks, a worldwide financial crisis and a deep recession in many countries. Lehman 's collapse roiled global financial markets for weeks, given the size of the company and its status as a major player in the U.S. and internationally. Many questioned the U.S. government 's decision to let Lehman fail, as compared to its tacit support for Bear Stearns, which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) in March 2008. Lehman 's bankruptcy led to more than $46 billion of its market value being wiped out. Its collapse also served as the catalyst for the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America in an emergency deal that was also announced on September 15.

During the recent financial crisis, in the autumn of 2008, the Lehman Brothers bank collapsed. It was the biggest bankruptcy in history

There has been a debate for years on what caused the Financial Crisis in 2008 and if there was one main cause, or a series of unfortunate events that led to the crisis. The crisis began when the market was no longer funding many financial entities. The Federal Reserve then lowered the federal funds rate from 5.25% to almost zero percent in December 2008. The Federal Government realized that this was not enough and decided to bail out Bear Stearns, which inhibited JP Morgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns. Unfortunately Bear Stearns was not the only financial entity that needed saving, Lehman Brothers needed help as well. Lehman Brothers was twice the size of Bear Stearns and the government could not bail them out. Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy on September 15, 2008. Lehman Brothers bankruptcy caused the market tensions to become disastrous. The Fed then had to bail out American International Group the day after Lehman Brothers failed (Poole, 2010). Some blame poor policy making and others blame the government. The main causes of the financial crisis are the deregulation of banks and bank corruption.

The new lackadaisical lending requirements and low interest rates drove housing prices higher, which only made the mortgage backed securities and CDOs seem like an even better investment. Now consider the housing market which had become a housing bubble, which had now burst, and now people could not pay for their incredibly expensive houses or keep up with their ballooning mortgage payments. Borrowers started defaulting, which put more houses back on the market for sale. But there were not any buyers. Supply was up, demand was down, and home prices started collapsing. As prices fell, some borrowers suddenly had a mortgage for way more than their home was currently worth and some stopped paying. That led to more defaults, pushing prices down further. As this was happening, the big financial institutions stopped buying sub-prime mortgages and sub-prime lenders were getting stuck with bad loans. By 2007, some big lenders had declared bankruptcy. The problems spread to the big investors, who had poured money into the mortgage backed securities and CDOs. They started losing money on their investments. All these of these financial instruments resulted in an incredibly complicated web of assets, liabilities, and risks. So that when things went bad, they went bad for the entire financial system. Some major financial players declared bankruptcy and others were forced into mergers, or needed

Thus, the banking system had to continuously roll over (renew) their short-term liabilities until their long-term assets fully matured. If an event arose whereby Icelandic banks failed to find new borrowers to continue rolling over their liabilities, they could face a liquidity crisis and, more importantly, spark the collapse of the Icelandic financial system; recent events have borne out this exact scenario.