The Causes 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

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.

Many people today would consider the 2008, United States financial crisis a simple “malfunction” or “mistake”, but it was nothing close to that. Contrary to what many believe, renowned economists and financial advisors regarded the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 to be the most devastating crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. To make matters worse, the decline in the economy expanded nationwide, resulting in the recession of 2007 to 2009 (Brue). David Einhorn, CEO of GreenHorn Capital, even goes as far as to say "What strikes me the most about the recent credit market crisis is how fast the world is trying to go back to business as usual. In my view, the crisis wasn't an accident. We didn't get unlucky. The crisis came

In 2008 America’s financial system was brought to a stand still as decades of negligence and financial decisions caused our economy to sink into the worst recession since the great depression. Cultivating a problem worse than America has seen in roughly a century points one finger not at a particular cause, but a string of events that finally gave way. Now, eight years later our economy is still recovering, and time has allowed us to look back at decades of mistakes to try and connect the dots of the perfect storm that collapsed our financial market in 2008. In 2009 Brookings Institution, one of Washington’s oldest think tanks, concluded there were three causes that resulted in the crisis. Economists Martin Baily and Douglas Elliot stated that the results of government intervention in the housing market, the influences Wall Street had on Washington, and global economic forces were the three main causes of the economic collapse. They believed that a housing bubble inflated when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored enterprises, intervened in the housing market. The banking industry was called out to be blamed for years of manipulation of our political and financial systems. Lastly, Baily and Elliot cite the global economy and the existence of a credit boom throughout European and Asian nations. Low inflation and consistent growth throughout the world economy spiked investors’ interest in acquiring riskier investments, which encouraged

Little regulation in the banking industry allowed for risky investments and banks to grow out of proportion ultimately causing the Great Recession. The Great Recession of 2008 had many parallels with the Great Depression of 1929 and when compared it can be concluded that history repeats itself when the necessary precautions are not put into place. The Great Depression and the Great Recession each followed periods of exceptional business investment, productivity growth and economic gain. Interestingly preceding both these events too much leveraging was taking place leading to both of the collapses. Although leverage can be a good financial strategy, in the cases of the Great

“The Great Recession of 2008 didn't just happen in one month. It took years to correct the easy-money policies and lax standards of Wall Street”. Corruption in Wall Street ran rampant in the months leading up to the recession. Many brokers on Wall Street poorly informed customers, and tied them into mortgages they simply could not sustain. Corporations could get away with corrupt actions due to a lack of regulation on business practices, specifically instituting regulations on big financial corporations. At the same time, the government bailed out multiple large-scale businesses, as an attempt to preserve struggling American industry. This ultimately proved not to be beneficial. As our mother remarked, “I did have an idea that we were going to be heading for at least a contraction in the market. But, I had absolutely no clue of the magnitude of it, and blindsided me a bit. I feel like it was protracted because of all of the bailouts that were offered… It might have had a more natural outcome if some institutions were allowed to fail…”. Ultimately, government efforts to prevent an impending recession were concentrated in areas that would only magnify its

Levin, Carl, and Tom Coburn. United States. United States Senate. Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse. Washington: Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 2010.

The underlying problems that caused the financial crisis of 2008 began building before many economists and policymakers are willing to admit. Since the laissez-faire policies of the Reagan administration in the 1980s, inequality and unemployment heightened. “Between 1976 and 2006 (...) ation-adjusted per capita income increased by 64 percent, for the bottom 90 percent of households it increased only by 10 percent. For the top one percent of households it increased 232 percent,” (Wisman 2013, 932) causing an income gap. Another arsing issue was globalization after World War II. The economy’s structure changed and outdated previous economic policy. Manufacturing jobs were outsourced because labor was cheaper abroad; the US imported more goods than it exported, causing a trade deficit.

In 2008, one of the biggest financial recessions of our time occurred. The blame that should be placed on the unexpected crash of the housing market should come from the shady business strategies used by banks and investment agencies, which caused millions of everyday people to lose their jobs and homes. The role of subprime mortgages, CDO’s, and illicit ratings caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The culmination of these things led to the downfall of the economy and start of a recession.

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.

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

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 Global Financial Crisis, also known as The Great Recession, broke out in the United States of America in the middle of 2007 and continued on until 2008. There were many factors that contributed to the cause of The Global Financial Crisis and many effects that emerged, because the impact it had on the financial system. The Global Financial Crisis started because of house market crash in 2007. There were many factors that contributed to the housing market crash in 2007. These factors included: subprime mortgages, the housing bubble, and government policies and regulations. The factors were a result of poor financial investments and high risk gambling, which slumped down interest rates and price of many assets. Government policies and regulations were made in order to attempt to solve the crises that emerged; instead the government policies made backfired and escalated the problem even further.

There are many reasons for the financial crisis. Everyone, at one time or another, had to look through the want ads for employment. Public and private business demonstrate to be hiring, however, the unemployment rate has been reported at an all-time high. In addition, most employers are looking for a minimum of an associate degree. What is the relationship between these three topics and how does it affect the economy?

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