The Cause Of The 2008 Financial Recession

During 1997-2006, house prices rose 85 percent. This led to an irresponsible consumer spending spree. Millions of people bought a house that they could not afford. Government regulatory agencies and mortgage lenders became less strict with credit restrictions so that people could buy homes without making any down payment. In 2007, however, the home values and sales began to decline. Due to the loss of trillions of dollars in home value, a record number of borrowers defaulted on their mortgage payments. America was put into a recession in 2008 because of the contraction of corporate spending and consumer purchased. The prices of consumer goods spiked, while employment declined. On October 3, 2008, former President Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program; however, the bill did not restore the economy as a whole. By June 2009, America's economic recovery was at its weakest since the end of the Second World War. I chose this event in history because it had a major effect on America’s economy and changed the course of history. Historians need to study the Great Recession because America should learn from their mistakes. The Great Recession was due to different factors; however, if the regulations on credit restrictions were not tampered with, then the severity of the recession could have been

There are many research institutions that are quick to point the finger and blame one specific entity or event for the events that occurred during the economic decline in 2008; however, the entire situation cannot be put onto the shoulders of one company, or the faults of one industry. There were several causes that played into the financial crisis, but two causes stand out as the pre-dominant elements of the collapse of major financial establishments: manipulation of the housing market by two government-funded companies, and the greed of wealthy Wall Street bankers and investors who knowingly took advantage of the system.

In Frontline’s The Meltdown, the causes of the stock market crash of 2008 came into discussion. The topics regarding Bear Stearns, the Lehman Brothers’ and their collapse, and the huge bailout made in results to the market crash. There were great points being made on the mistakes Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke did not view from their perspective, which in turns were the problems that made up the crash.

The intention of this essay is to provide an in depth and critical analysis of the financial crisis that took place between 2007-2009, in particular focusing on some key issues raised by the Foote, Gerardi and Willen paper ‘Why did so many people make so many Ex Post bad decisions?’ Whilst there were many contributing factors, it is clear that a specific few played a particularly dominant role, primarily the ‘Bubble Theory’, irresponsible regulation, toxic CDO’s and $62 trillion of CDS’s.

During the 2008 Great Recession, the financial crisis happened because banks were able to create too much money, way too quickly, and they used it to push up house prices and speculate on financial markets. This was the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The bank was giving out money to the people who couldn't pay it back. There were a lot of subprime loans to those people with poor credit history. Subprime mortgages were often sold to families who didn't even qualify for ordinary home loans. They would sell them to the people who couldn't even get loans and then turn around and sell them to the banks. The banks said that "anyone qualifies for loans". These banks often created a lot of fake inflation.

The Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis of 2008 has been the largest financial crisis to take place since the end of the Great Depression. It was the actions of individuals and companies that caused this crisis. For although it could have been adverted, too much money was being made by too many people in place of authority to think deeply on the situation. As such, by the time actions were taken to attempt to rectify the situation, it was already too late. Trillions of dollar of tax payers’ money was spent trying to repair the situation that was caused by the breakdown of ethics and accountability in the private sector. And despite the government’s actions to attempt to contain the crisis, hundreds of thousands lives were negatively

All of these components manufactured the financial crisis. Right after the crisis, banks were strict on lending to households and businesses. The decline in lending caused prices in these markets to trickle down, which means those that have taken a lot, had to contemplate on the rising prices and had to give up their estates in order to repay their loans. House prices became cheaper and everything burst. This lead banks to panic and cut their lending even more. A downward spiral resulted from all of this, and the economy went into recession.

The main cause of the Crash of 2008 was deregulation in 1980s of Financial Institutions which include Banks, Insurance Companies, Credit Rating Agencies etc. As a result of this deregulation, the Financial Institutions started playing in their own ways to get maximum personnel benefits. By the time the crisis was over, the top five executives of Lehman Brothers made millions of dollars between 2001 to 2007, the AIG’s Financial Product Division lost 11 billion dollars, instead of being fired, and Joseph Cassano, the head of AIGFP, was kept on as a consultant for a million dollars a month. The use of derivatives, subprime loans, and much greed within Wall street were all factors that caused the economy to drastically drop in the first place; making mortgage-backed securities in danger of defaulting. Brooksley Born was one of many that attempted to regulate derivatives; unfortunately she did not succeed. To pay for troubled assets from financial institutions, the Senate passed the $700 billion bailout bill that came out of taxpayers. Additionally President Obama came up with an economic plan that enforced regulation to speed up recovery. Although, I believe “command and control” was the wrong path to take.

A mortgage meltdown and financial crisis of unbelievable magnitude was brewing and very few people, including politicians, the media, and the poor unsuspecting mortgage borrowers anticipated the ramifications that were about to occur. The financial crisis of 2008 was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression; ultimately coalescing into the largest bankruptcies in world history--approximately 30 million people lost their jobs, trillions of dollars in wealth diminished, and millions of people lost their homes through foreclosure or short sales. Currently, however, the financial situation has improved tremendously. For example, the unemployment rate has significantly improved from 10 percent in October of 2009 to five percent in

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.

Previously stated, the federal funds rate was cut to as low as 1% during the early 2000’s. Not only did this turn investors away from investing in treasury bonds, but it also cheapened the cost of borrowing money for banks. This spurred action on behalf of financial institutions to offer investments connected to the continually increasing, and seemingly risk-free, housing market. Due to a combination of greed and ignorance on behalf of financial institutions and credit rating agencies, the proverbial housing bubble increased until it finally reached its peak in 2006, and then began to burst at the end of that year and on into 2007. What exacerbated the decline to such a high degree was the strong connectivity of the financial institutions through their complex transactions that related to mortgages. The main factors that were involved in the impending crash were the increased offering of subprime mortgage loans and collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. Critically analyzing the effects of these products will aid in the conversation of financial institutions role in sparking The Great Recession.

Back in 2008, here in the US and in many other countries around the world, we suffered

From 2000 to 2015, college graduate salary increases year after year, but there are ups and downs in the process of rising. There are many factors of these ups and downs, such as economy, policy, social development and so on. For example, in 2008 the US financial crisis directly affected many industries, and led to a larger employment shock, which led to the decline in wages. And then because of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States caused by international financial tsunami, leading to many of the world's financial institutions in the chain of bankruptcy, and triggered a lot of the financial industry has been layoffs wave. The financial crisis of 2008 has infiltrated a lot of real economic fields, and brought great negative impact

The financial crisis that began in 2007 right through to the summer of 2008 was perceived as global crisis that affected various countries including the United Kingdom. It was predominately caused by failure to regulate financial institutions and systems appropriately. (Davies, 2008) The world was shocked and surprised particularly politicians and policymakers. Initially their response was to conduct a crisis management as a solution but later discovered that the crisis was one of the worst in history. As a result reforms on financial regulations had to take place not only nationally but within Europe and on an international level. Gordon (2010) argues that financial crises are nothing new, however they have become more complex over the years and therefore politicians and policy makers face major challenges in implementing the right form of regulation to comply with the complexity of the financial sector. In the UK, at one point in history command and control (CAC) was perceived as the suitable approach to regulate the financial industry; however self-regulation was later introduced as the effective form of regulation based on the neoliberalism concept. After the financial crisis self-regulation was being criticised therefore leaving policy makers, politicians and economists to decide what form of regulation would be appropriate to effectively regulate financial institutions that would avoid and prevent further financial failures. Therefore the purpose of this essay is

The United States economy is currently experiencing the worst crisis since the Great Depression back in the decade that was preceding World War II. The crisis started off from the home mortgage market, especially the market for so-called “subprime” mortgages, and has already spread beyond subprime to prime mortgages, commercial real estate, corporate junk bonds, and other forms of debt. This paper critically illustrates the factors that account for the crisis, who was affected by this crisis, and how it was spread to the rest of the world.