The Worst Recession Since The Great Depression

The mortgage crisis of 2007 marked catastrophe for millions of homeowners who suffered from foreclosure and short sales. Most of the problems involving the foreclosing of families’ homes could boil down to risky borrowing and lending. Lenders were pushed to ensure families would be eligible for a loan, when in previous years the same families would have been deemed too high-risk to obtain any kind of loan. With the increase in high-risk families obtaining loans, there was a huge increase in home buyers and subsequently a rapid increase in home prices. As a result, prices peaked and then began falling just as fast as they rose. Soon after families began to default on their mortgages forcing them either into foreclosure or short sales. Who was to blame for the risky lending and borrowing that caused the mortgage meltdown? Many might blame the company Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but in reality the entire system of buying and selling and free market failed home owners and the housing economy.

The financial collapse of 2008 devastated many families and caused many people to lose their jobs and homes. It became the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The financial collapse began in 2007 when sky-high home prices in the United States finally turned decisively downward, spread quickly, first to the entire U.S. financial sector and then to financial markets overseas (Encyclopedia Britannica 1). The Securitization Food Chain is what sent the mortgage business into a downward spiral causing thousands to foreclose on their home and many even needing to file bankruptcy. When giving out high mortgage loans to middle or lower class families they are being set up to have future financial issues when their payment rate increases. The Securitization Food Chain had a major influence on the Financial Crisis.

In 2008 the real estate market crashed because of the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act and Commodities Futures Modernization Act, which led to shady mortgage lending or “liar loans” (Hartman). The loans primarily approved for lower income and middle class borrowers with little income or no job income verification, which lead to many buyers purchasing homes they could not afford because everyone wants a piece of the American dream; homeownership. Because of “reckless lending to lower- and middle-income borrowers who could not afford to repay their loans many of the home buyers lost everything when the market collapsed” (Tankersley 3). Homeowners often continued to live in their houses for months or years without paying any

In the lead up to the current recession, when the real estate market began to fall, there were so many investors shorting stocks and securitized mortgage packages that were already falling, that the market simply fell further. There were no buyers at the bottom, and the professional investors made millions off of the losses of others. Beyond this, there was no real federal regulation for securitized mortgages, since there was no real way to gauge the mathematical risk of any given package. This allowed the investors to take advantage of the system and to short loans on real people’s homes. Once these securities were worthless, many of the homebuyer’s defaulted on their mortgages and were left penniless. No matter from which angle this crisis is looked at, the blame rests squarely with the managers who began the entire cycle, the ones who pursued the securitization of mortgages. Their incompetence not only led to the losses of Americans who have never invested in the stock market, but to losses for their shareholders.

At the end of the 20th century, it was clear that the United States national economy was on a incline. The U.S began winning the worldwide arms race, holding 50% of the world weapons stockpile (Taylor 10). Capitalism, the main trademark of the United States economy, spread like a wildfire across the majority of the world (Taylor 10). To the uneducated ear, news like this sounds great; the United States is slowly taking over the world. However, this insane growth was actually poising the U.S. for an extreme downfall in the coming years of the early 21st century. The major downfall would come to be known as the worst recession in our history since the infamous Great Depression.

The housing market had started to decline in 2007, after reaching peak prices in 2006. There was an extremely high amount of subprime mortgages that had been issued in the early 2000’s. Homeowners could no longer afford to live in their homes, payments started going to default, and foreclosures started to rise. According to The Washington Post, there were five contributing factors to the housing market crash: low-doc loans, adjustable- rate mortgages, equity line of credit, more money down than needed, and mortgage insurance.

During the great recession era that began in late-2007 and lasted until mid-2009, the labor market took a major loss. The reasons that caused the labor market to plummet during this time frame were due to unemployment, a decrease in income and lack of education. Despite the efforts from the government to help as much as possible, the labor market had taken the worst hit and was at its lowest since the last three decades. It is important for everyone to understand what a weak labor market can result in. In this paper, I will discuss these findings and what impact they had on the labor market to weaken it to such a low point.

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

Every American was impacted in some way or another during the 2008 recession. Whether one was worried about their bank closing its doors, their business closing up or filling for bankruptcy it changed the way Americans save and think. The recession personally affected me for my father works at one of the “big three” car companies. And the fear of being let go of or laid off was something that every person in the industry had to deal with. But it was just in the car industry that suffered, it was every industry. All the financial suffering was rooted in one of the most essential needs of every human being, housing.

As the U.S. economy continues its struggle to climb out of a deep recession, personal loans remain very difficult to secure. Having shouldered much of the blame for the financial hardships that have befallen consumers across the nation, many banks now require potential borrowers to meet strict criteria for an approval. With the financial institutions being more selective about who they assist, Detroit locals like Ashley Wright are learning that consumers with excellent credit and decent paying jobs are the most likely to make the cut. "Getting an approval was definitely a journey," said Wright, who was in search of a personal loan to help out with school and living expenses. Wright found that a private bank was the best place to turn for

Ever since World War II the United States has experienced many recessions. There have been many terrible recessions that have hit this great country hard. What is a recession people may wonder? A recession is a significant decline in activity across the economy, lasting longer than a few months. It is visible in industrial production, employment, real income and wholesale-retail trade. The technical indicator of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as measured by a country 's gross domestic product (GDP). Although, the recession of 2001 wasn’t a dramatic and horrible recession, it was the end of the longest expansion our country had seen since WWII. The expansion following the recession of 1991 was 10 years up until this recession of 2001. Furthermore, this recession was difficult and was hard to deal with and overcome, because during the time of this recession our country experienced 9/11.

To answer the first question and what I can identify with is the great recession in the United States. An economic recession is considered a business cycle contraction. This is when the economy is in decline. During this time many microeconomic indicators react in similar ways such as, economic hardships, mass unemployment, investments, incomes, capital utilization and inflation all decline in a recession.

Recession is termed as a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. Based on the complete recession that took place few important points that I could gather in specific considering each type of recession are listed below. How it took place? Causes for it and what impact it had on the audience. Let me discuss about this in brief.

The great recession of 2008 affected everyone around the world. The great Recession is considered the second worst economic crisis in American history, behind the Great Depression.

An unprecedented era of greed and complete lack of transparency led to the economic crash, and housing bubble of 2007 and 2008. I will address the individual home owner later on in this essay, but first I will be addressing the issue of the “CDO”, which most Americans still don’t understand. The “CDO” was used maliciously to make money for the CDO brokers and major CDO creators, investment banks like Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, as well as insurance giants like AIG.