The United States: The Global Financial Crisis

Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 originated in the United States spread to the financial systems of many other countries, including CIS countries, by means of the domino effect. Bankruptcy of one of the largest Americans Bank, Lehman Brothers Holdings PLC, in someway was a launcher of this global crisis the scope of that can be compared with the Great Depression of the 30s of the last century. No one could have even believed that a crisis in the local market of subprime mortgage loans in the USA would have such enormous affect on the financial systems over the world and crash banking sectors of many countries one by one.

On September 15, 2008, Wall Street entered the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression. On a day that could have been called Black Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial average plummeted almost 500 points. Historically prominent investment giant Lehman Brothers filled for bankruptcy, while Bank of America bought out former powerhouse Merrill Lynch (Maloney and Lindeman 2008). The crisis enveloped the economy of the United States, as effects are still felt today. Experts still disagree about what exactly caused the greatest financial disaster since the Great Depression, but many point to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 as a gateway to the rise of extreme laissez-faire policies that allowed Wall Street to take on incredible risk at the expense of taxpayers. In the wake of the crisis, politicians look for policies that reign in the power of Wall Street, but the fundamental relationship between economic and political power has made such regulation ineffective.

The financial crisis of 2007–2008, also known as the Global Financial Crisis and 2008 financial crisis, is considered by some economists such as Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics and international business at New York University, Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University, and Nariman Behravesh, chief economist and executive vice president for IHS Global Insight, to have been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. All of them agreed that this is a “one in fifty years event”, however the latest Great Recession is not a typical cyclical recession of the World Economy and no doubt will last for more that usual two years (Business Wire, Reuters). The crisis played a significant role in the failure of key businesses, declines in consumer wealth estimated in trillions of U.S. dollars, and a downturn in economic activity leading to the 2008–2012 global recession and contributing to the European sovereign-debt crisis. (M. N. Baily, D. J. Elliott, 2009). So what are the cаuses of this crisis? Mаny factors dirеctly and indirectly caused the Great Recession, with expеrts plаcing different weights upon pаrticular causes. Major cаuses of the initial sub-prime mortgage crisis and following recession include: Internаtional trade imbalances and tax lending stаndards contributing to high levels of dеveloped

With the hunger for yields driving down rates across the fixed income market, an increasing number of articles are coming out warning of lower underwriting standards and the danger in covenant-lite (cov-lite) investments. Covenants on high yield bonds and bank loans are loosening; however we are not observing the excesses of a late-cycle boom. It is easy to point to a few statistics and draw startling conclusions about the below investment grade market. While cov-lite loan issuance is increasing, these securities still provide protection to secured lenders. High Yield bond covenants have also been weakening. Issues are coming to market with investment grade style covenant packages that do not provide strong liens and change of control protections. While loan and bond covenants are getting leaner, credit fundamentals still remain robust.

There are a number of notions as to what led to the mortgage crisis. Many professionals and economists believe it came about through which subprime lending played a major part. (Bianco, 2008) An increase in loan enticements such as easy initial terms and a long-term trend of climbing housing prices had encouraged borrowers to undertake problematic mortgages in the belief they would be able to refinance at more advantageous terms in a diminutive amount of time. Furthermore, the increased market power of originators of subprime mortgages, as well as the lessening role of Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE’s) as concierges, amplified the number of subprime mortgages provided to consumers who would have otherwise qualified for compatible loans. The inferior performing loans were safeguarded by private investment banks, who, for the most part, lacked the GSE's power and influence over mortgage originators. As soon as the interest rates began to escalate and housing prices started to descend reasonably in 2006–2007, refinancing became more challenging. As easy preliminary terms expired, ARM interest rates reset higher, and home prices failed to increase as expected, defaults and foreclosure activity amplified dramatically.

The economic turmoil of 2008 is arguably the worst financial crisis since the great depression of the 1930s. Although financial crisis is not entirely new, each one is characterized by unique challenges that make it difficult to make a prediction on when and how the next financial crisis might occur. The financial crisis of 2008 to 2009 was marked by a failure in the efficiency of the financial markets, inability of regulatory bodies to regulate the financial product and was catalyzed by weak macroeconomic fundamentals prevailing at the time. In the aftermath of the turmoil financial crisis, there has been a debate in the financial community on whether there are specific indicators that precipitate a financial crisis and whether the global economy is at a risk of experiencing the a repeat of a financial crisis of a similar nature to the crisis of 2008. The

“The 2007-8 stock market crash was largely due to widespread defaulting on subprime mortgages.” (The 2007-08 Financial crisis in review) In other words, towards the end of 2006, almost all borrowers defaulted. Instead of getting money, lenders got houses back, and put them again on sale. With the huge number of houses on the market, the supply was massively high, while the demand was low. Hence, the bubbles started bursting and the prices of the houses started declining

The financial crisis began in early 2006 when the subprime mortgage market in the U.S. began to display an increasing rate of mortgage defaults. These defaults lead, in late 2006, to a decline in US housing prices after nearly a decade of exceptionally high growth. Many Americans watched as their primary source of wealth become increasingly devalued. By late 2007, the prime mortgage markets were showing higher than normal default rates as well.

Economists and scholars spend years dissecting financial markets and evaluating the causes of booms and busts. Throughout United States history there have been multiple economic booms that were underestimated and followed by recessions. In the situation of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis many culprits have been identified as causes, such as loose monetary policy, credit booms, deregulation, over complexity, and greed. Since the economic boom was solely dependent on weak policies and misconceptions, this leads me to believe prevention was possible with adequate regulatory policy, risk assessment and clarifications for commercial banks.

The definitive event of the early twenty-first century was The Financial Crisis of 2007-08. Since that event, scholars have tried to identify what the causes and the effects of the crisis. The causes and effects of the collapse are varied and many scholars show a consensus about what these causes and effects are.

The credit crunch, which occurred in the U.S. housing market between 2007 and 2009, led to the biggest global financial crisis. The impact of this crisis extended over the world, and the economies of many countries were damaged. Kawai stated that: ‘The ongoing global crisis has had a profound impact on the Asia and Pacific region, particularly on its exports.’ (2009:1)

Mortgage-backed securities and subprime mortgage crisis were generally thought to be the cause of the 2008 financial crisis. This paper will be discussing the cause of the financial crisis and the relationship between mortgage-backed securities and the crisis. The paper will further describe the actions taken by the government to recover the securities.

In July of 2007, the global financial crisis was initiated from the property market in the United States.

The 2008 global financial crisis began from America. American financial crisis came from the prosperity of real estate. Before the 2008 global financial crisis, a large number of financial derivatives were generated and financial bubble became more and more serious. Finally, American sub-prime crisis occurred

Although there has not been a consensus on an exact causation —due to its global nature—there has been unanimity on a number of factors. As in the case of its sister crisis (the Great Depression), many scholars acknowledge that before this cataclysm struck, the preceding economy did in fact experience a “boom” period. Most critics are also in accordance that the trigger of this crisis had to involve the subprime mortgage bubble—which collapsed in the United States—however, that alone could not represent the exact causality of this crisis. Just as in the Great Depression, there were a variety of contributing factors that resulted in this financial catastrophe.