Cause Of The 2008 Financial Crisis

In 2008, the world experienced a tremendous financial crisis which rooted from the U.S housing market; moreover, it is considered by many economists as one of the worst recession since the Great Depression in 1930s. After posing a huge effect on the U.S economy, the financial crisis expanded to Europe and the rest of the world. It brought governments down, ruined economies, crumble financial corporations and impoverish individual lives. For example, the financial crisis has resulted in the collapse of massive financial institutions such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brother and AIG. These collapses not only influence own countries but also international area. Hence, the intervention of governments by changing and

The reality of systemic risk made the task of regulating the financial system increasingly complicated, as the crises aren’t contained in one country or market. The extreme inter-dependence between the different agents is the main reason why we need regulation today, as some misconducts can cause a domino effect, affecting markets globally. The structure of the banking system in itself explains this process. In the finance industry, banks borrow money from other banks. If one bank fails, the one who lent the funds in the first place might also follow the same path, creating panic in the markets. The government’s first prerogative is to protect its citizens from these

Failure in reforming and adopting proper government policies have caused the world economy to face severe financial crises over a long period of time. The problems started to arise in the more recent period and they were not repaired by the regulatory responses. In retrospect, some of these regulatory failures then were responsible for the crisis today, likewise the poor regulatory practices today might be responsible for the crises

As evolution proceeds through time, it carries the gift of facilitation and intelligence. However, in today’s intellectually advanced society there has been a cloud of egotism that has decimated mortality and integrity amongst individuals in an unpredictable economy. The financial crisis that took place from 2007-2009 was based on the lack of moral judgment and a surplus of gluttony that affected the united states economy drastically. This crisis is primarily based on the negligence of banks by granting loan opportunities to individuals who do not qualify due to bad credit score, lack of assets to make a down payment, employment status. However, numerous banks had predicted and were aware that most of the individuals who applied for a loan and did not qualify would default on their mortgage, which would allow banks to repossess the house and sell it for maximum value.

As the financial system moved forward after the S&L Crisis, what later became known as the parallel banking system began to bloom. In this system, commercial banks began to act like large investment banks and quickly the financial system as a whole became much larger, more complex and much more active in securitization. Some industry analysts say that it was advances in data processing and telecommunication that created economies of scale and scope in finance, and fostered the need for larger and more diversified financial institutions. As these banks became larger and much more powerful, they pressured regulators to strip away all barriers to competition and growth. This began to take hold with the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act in 1994 (RNIBBEA). This allowed bank holding companies to practice nationwide branching and acquire companies in other states. This led to mass consolidation that resulted in the top ten commercial and investment banks owning a combined 10.8 trillion dollars by 2007, and a 25% increase in all industry assets.

One of the principal functions of financial oversight authorities in achieving a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system is to regulate and supervise various financial entities. But following the crisis of 2007, regulatory authorities in the whole world were engaged in a fundamental reconsideration of how they approach financial regulation and supervision. Performing these functions through micro- prudential regulation and supervision of banks, holding companies, their affiliates and other entities, including nonbank financial companies, proved to be insufficient to ensure and maintain financial stability of a country, union or the world as a whole.

There are many different views as to what brought on the financial crisis of 2008. One of these views are that of global imbalances. On the one hand, the United States have an extremely large current account deficit. On the other, there are countries, especially oil-exporting economies and China in particular, with large current account surpluses. The concept of global or external imbalances is often seen as a synonym for this situation.

(Lecture 2, Law of Commerce, Investment and Banking). For example, Martin Wolf wrote in 2009: "...an enormous part of what banks did in the early part of this decade – the off-balance-sheet vehicles, the derivatives and the 'shadow banking system ' itself – was to find a way round regulation." (Wolf M., 2009). Off balance sheet financing made it possible for firms to look less leveraged and allowed them to borrow at cheaper rates. (Simkovic M., 2009). Analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed that big banks hide their risk levels just prior to opening data quarterly to the public. (Kelly K., McGinty T., Fitzpatrick D., 2010). From this moment it is possible to ask the question: What did regulators do at that moment? Critics have argued that the regulatory framework did not keep pace with financial innovation, such as the increasing importance of the shadow banking system, derivatives and off-balance sheet financing. In other cases, laws were changed or enforcement weakened in parts of the financial system. Several critics have argued that the most critical role for regulation is to make sure that financial institutions have the ability or capital to deliver on their commitments. Another critics have also noted de facto deregulation through a shift in market share toward the least regulated portions of the mortgage market. (Simkovic M., 2011). In overall, regulatory system makes bad impression as it seems not working properly. Author Roger

The financial crisis of 2007-2009 affected virtually every market in the world. In the United States, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 53.8 percent in less than a year and a half, 1 out of every 45 homes were under foreclosure, all but two investment banks either failed or were acquired, the largest insurance company

In the wake of the crisis, governments across the world were forced to step in and bail out many of their banks. This emphasised another issue which regulators have to face due to

There is no smoke without fire. The global financial crisis caused from hundreds of thousands of decisions and changes from different areas. The America government, Wall Street and the Rating Agencies put on this world-shaking show together. And to be more specific, the top officials in politics and finance pull strings behind the senses. Applying Mintzberg’s ten management roles model as a frame, the America government, Wall Street and the Rating Agencies are correspondingly divided into three categories as interpersonal, decisional and informational.
Government is obviously and absolutely a leader for the people in the country. People count on their government and on the other side, every decisions government made, every bills Congress passed is closely related to people in the bottom. In the global financial crisis, government decided to deregulation and negligent to have contingency plan to protect country economics. Government deregulation in financial market had precedents back in last century. In 1981, the Reagan-administration was supported by economics and financial lobbies and started thirty-period financial deregulation. Later, the Reagan-administration also deregulated the savings loan company and allowed them using deposit money to do risk investment. But by the end of 80s, hundreds of company failed. It has been described to be the biggest bank robbery in the history at that time and it caused millions of people lost everything over one night. The

Source: „The Current Financial Crisis: Causes and Policy Issues“ by Adrian Blundell-Wignall, Paul Atkinson and Se Hoon Lee

This chapter is about the background of 2007-2008 financial crisis. The 2007-2008 financial crisis has a huge impact on US banking system and how the banks operate and how they are regulated after the financial turmoil. This financial crisis started with difficulty of rolling over asset backed commercial papers in the summer of 2007 due to uncertainty on the liquidity of mortgage backed securities and questions about the soundness of banks and non-bank financial institutes when interest rate continued to go up at a faster pace since 2004. In March 2008 the second wave of liquidity loss occurred after US government decided to bailout Bear Stearns and some commercial banks, then other financial institutions took it as a warning of financial difficulty of their peers. In the meantime banks started hoarding cash and reserve instead of lending out to fellow banks and corporations. The third wave of credit crunch which eventually brought down US financial system and spread over the globe was Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy in August 2008. Many major commercial banks in US held structured products and commercial papers of Lehman Brother, as a result, they suffered a great loss as Lehman Brother went into insolvency. This panic of bank insolvency caused loss of liquidity in both commercial paper market and inter-bank market. Still banks were reluctant to turn to US government or Federal Reserve as this kind of action might indicate delicacy of

In this essay, we are trying to look at the factors responsible for the global financial crisis in 2008-09 which started in US and later spread across the world. By now, a lot of studies have been done on the global financial crisis of 2008. We explain briefly the role of the financial engineering which leads to combination of various financial securities, the actual risk of which is not clearly assessed and hence leading to the financial crisis. There were also some serious lapses in regulation and failure of the rating agencies in assessing the risks assumed by the financial products which accentuated the crisis.

According to the work examined in this study the global recession that occurred in 2008 and 2009 was partially a result of the financial industry's failure to be responsible for the decision it made in using financial instruments that were risk and very complex in nature. The culture of corporations were constructed on risk-based rewards instead of rewards that resulted in value for stakeholders. The financial risks that banks took on were not well comprehended by the public or regulators and the mass media also failed to understand the risks that the banks had entered into with certain financial agreements.