The year is 2008, and bad banking practices have led major companies such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and AIG to near bankruptcy. There seems to be no way to stop the impending financial crisis. But out of nowhere comes the Federal Reserve, with 7.7 trillion dollars of zero interest loans. All looks well, until the housing market collapses. So what was the point of creating 7.7 trillion dollars in assets if an economic recession would still occur? Why would the Fed bail out big businesses at the expense of the taxpayer? The answer lies in the reckless, unconstitutional policies of the Federal Reserve. The Fed bails out big banks and companies, unconstitutionally prints money, and leads the dollar to its collapse. During the 2008 …show more content…
With all that being said, the mortgages that were rated as excellent were actually bad for homebuyers. To the homebuyers’ surprise, the interest rates rose and they could no longer afford to pay their mortgages. This meant that the investors lost their money and subsequently stopped buying these mortgage-backed securities. This sent housing prices falling by thirty percent and the stock market falling by fifty percent, and also led to nine million jobs being lost. Some of companies involved in the mortgages, such as AIG, almost went bankrupt as a result. AIG lost all their money because they insured these bad mortgages and had no money to pay for all the mortgages they insured. These companies did this because they knew the Fed would always have their backs. Because the Fed bailed these businesses out, they were essentially allowed to keep making money off of these bad banking practices. According to Mike Collins, an editor at Forbes Magazine, the actual bailout of these businesses turned out to cost $7.7 trillion, about the same as the US national debt at the time. Without the Fed, the free market would have let these businesses collapse, allowing new and better businesses to take their place, or even better, keep companies from using these bad practices in the first place.
After spending all this money to bail out big businesses, it would be expected that the average person would have benefitted from this bailout. In
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.
Additionally, when America’s economy was melting in 2008, the Federal Reserve played a big role to stabilize it. Besides the Great Depression during the years 1929 through 1939 the worst economic time for the United States, 2008 was unmistakable one of the worst years of America’s economy history. When this economic recession was taking place, the Fed had to take action to avoid another depression and to stop a fall from the financial system. With the help of the Federal Reserve J.P. Morgan Chase and Co.’s they planned to help Bear Stearns (an investment bank) with financial assistance to help the government to buyout AIG, a well-known insurance company. This helped to produce a strategy targeting to stabilize the credit market and also the short-term interest rate from 45% to almost 0 from the benchmark (Coste). Thanks to the Federal Reserve and their well design plan to avoid another recession they prevented the economy of the world or better known as Macroeconomic system from falling and getting it
In the late 2007, early 2008 the United States and the world was hit with the most serious economic downturn since The Great Depression in 1929. During this time the Federal Reserve played a huge role in assuring that it would not turn into the second Great Depression. In this paper, we will be discussing what the Federal Reserve did during this time, including a discussion of our nation’s three main economic goals which are GDP, employment, and inflation. My goal is to describe the historic monetary and fiscal policy efforts undertaken by the U.S. Government and Federal Reserve, including both the traditional and non-traditional measures to ease credit markets and stimulate the economy.
After the optimistic forecast from the realstate that the houses value were going to increase, many institutions started to make adjustments to take profit from this trend. In some cases, prime mortgages were allowed for subprime borrowers to take. This might look like a great idea to financial institutions because the house values were rising: if a people (who in the first place couldn’t afford a house) stop paying their mortgages then the bank could sell the house for a value greater than the one at the moment of default. Everything was going well, so how is it that the crisis unfolded? Well, these institutions wanted to make more profit
On October 3, 2008 President George W. Bush signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, otherwise known as the “bailout.” The Purpose of this act was defined as to, “Provide authority for the Federal Government to purchase and insure certain types of trouble assets for the purpose of providing stability to and preventing disruption in the economy and financial system and protecting taxpayers, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide incentives for energy production and conservation, to extend certain expiring provisions, to provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes” (Emergency Economic Stabilization Act). In my paper I will explain and show the relationship between the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and subprime lending, the collapse of the housing market, bundled mortgage securities, liquidity, and the Government 's efforts to bailout the nation 's banks.
Because of this downfall of the housing market, the U.S. economy fell along with other markets across the country. Homeowners had mortgages higher than what their homes were valued at, the decline in housing prices caused many people to default on their mortgages which caused the values of mortgage backed securities and CDO’s to collapse, leaving banks and their financial institutions holding those securities with a lower value of
In 2007-2008 the US went into a recession, a financial crisis that has since then taken five years to rebuild. During that time millions of Americans were unemployed and faced many economic struggles which negatively impacted the real estate market causing a multitude of foreclosures. The reason for this recession was because there was no authority over banks and they were not being monitored properly. Banks were able to gamble with the finances of millions of people with no consequences towards their actions. The Dodd Frank Act Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 was put into place to make sure that nothing like this ever happened again; The Dodd Frank Act implemented and set laws into place to make sure that banks and financial
In the midst of the current economic downturn, dubbed the “Great Recession”, it is natural to look for one, singular entity or person to blame. Managers of large banks, professional investors and federal regulators have all been named as potential creators of the recession, with varying degrees of guilt. No matter who is to blame, the fallout from the mistakes that were made that led to the current crisis is clear. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current unemployment rate is 9.7%, with 9.3 million Americans out of work (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Compared to a normal economic rate of two or three percent, it is clear that the decisions of one group of people have had a profound affect on the lives of millions of
“Lehman Collapse Sends Shockwave around the World” Reads the British newspaper, The Times, as the world sinks further into the recession in September 2008. The housing collapse was orchestrated and perpetrated by a system created by investment banks to allow them to make money, by keep the American people in debt, even when the banks knew the loans would default. The investing banking system was left unchecked by the United States government because it did not have the regulations as did the depository banks. There was immoral investing in people’s retirement, pensions, and homes where it created at housing collapse, in which thousands of people over paid in their subprime loans and lost their homes in the process. The federal Reserve is a very selfish and heartless entity in America that has had powerful influence in American politics for decades. The Federal Reserve must be dissolved and succeeded by a federalized entity that has no obligation to any investors. It must contain checks and balances to create a fair playing field. It must not benefit one group of people, but the nation as a whole. Finally, the new banking structure must be solid to keep necessities at steady prices, and must not work on speculation. Prior to “the Fed”, two previous central banking systems were in place, but were limited on how long they influenced (both twenty years) their interest in government, and twice, both banking system were not allowed renewal because many political figures,
Government help was seen as the only way to avoid a total economic collapse in the United States, although many thought it could result in a worldwide economic recession. On September 18, 2008 the 700 dollar bailout plan was proposed to congress. Fed Chairman Ben Bernake is quoted telling congress, “If we don’t do this, we may not have an economy on Monday” (The Housing Market Crash of 2007, 2011). This is when it became apparent that the government had a stake in this situation. When people begin questioning whether the United States economy will still exist, the government then has a huge role in the survival of not just the economy, but the entire country. The government is in a situation where it must decide how to protect the American economy, the citizens, the businesses, and the future of the United States of America. On October 3, 2008 congress passed “Emergency Economic Stablization Act” (H.R. 1424- 110th Congress, 2008) which led to the lending of 700 billion dollars’ to
The financial crisis that happened during 2007-09 was considered the worst financial crisis in the world since the great depression in the 1930s. It leads to a series of banking failures and also prolonged recession, which have affected millions of Americans and paralyzed the whole financial system. Although it was happened a long time ago, the side effects are still having implications for the economy now. This has become an enormously common topic among economists, hence it plays an extremely important role in the economy. There are many questions that were asked about the financial crisis, one of the most common question that dragged attention was ’’How did the government (Federal Reserve) contributed to the financial crisis?’’
The problem was everyone who qualified for a mortgage already had one. Lenders knew if they sold a mortgage to a person that defaults the lender gets the house, and houses were always increasing in value in that market, that would be a valuable asset to sell. To keep up with the demand from investors, lenders started selling mortgages to borrowers who wouldn’t have qualified before because of the risk for default. These mortgages are called sub-prime mortgages and lenders started creating tons of them. In the unregulated market, lenders employed predatory tactics to get more borrowers with attractive offers such as no money down, no credit history required, even no proof of income. People never would have qualified before were now buying large houses, and the lenders sold their mortgages to Investment bankers. The investors packed subprime mortgages in with prime mortgages so credit agencies would still give a AAA rating. The rating Agencies who had a conflict of interest by receiving payments from the investment banks, had no liability if their credit ratings were correct or not. They turned a blind eye to the risky CDOs and kept giving AAA ratings. This worked for a while and everyone was happy including the new homeowners. The housing market became hyper inflated with more homeowners than ever. Wall Street continued to sell their CDO’s which were ticking time bombs. The subprime mortgages began
The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was a set of events that led to the 2008 financial crisis, characterized by a rise in subprime mortgage defaults and foreclosures. This paper seeks to explain the causes of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and how this has led to a generalized credit crisis in other financial sectors that ultimately affects the real economy. In recent decades, financial industry has developed quickly and various financial innovation techniques have been abused widely, which is the main cause of this international financial crisis. In addition, deregulation, loose monetary policies of the Federal Reserve, shadow banking system also play
The new lackadaisical lending requirements and low interest rates drove housing prices higher, which only made the mortgage backed securities and CDOs seem like an even better investment. Now consider the housing market which had become a housing bubble, which had now burst, and now people could not pay for their incredibly expensive houses or keep up with their ballooning mortgage payments. Borrowers started defaulting, which put more houses back on the market for sale. But there were not any buyers. Supply was up, demand was down, and home prices started collapsing. As prices fell, some borrowers suddenly had a mortgage for way more than their home was currently worth and some stopped paying. That led to more defaults, pushing prices down further. As this was happening, the big financial institutions stopped buying sub-prime mortgages and sub-prime lenders were getting stuck with bad loans. By 2007, some big lenders had declared bankruptcy. The problems spread to the big investors, who had poured money into the mortgage backed securities and CDOs. They started losing money on their investments. All these of these financial instruments resulted in an incredibly complicated web of assets, liabilities, and risks. So that when things went bad, they went bad for the entire financial system. Some major financial players declared bankruptcy and others were forced into mergers, or needed
A financial fraud as extensive as the FED is almost infuriating. The richest and greediest individuals, found vulnerability within the banking market during the early 20th century, through propaganda and rumors they sought to disrupt the currently balanced banking system. The panic of 1907 was a well placed political tactic that allowed for the wealthiest of bankers to initiate an idea for centralized banking to “aid” our teetering nation’s economy, there legislation was introduced but decided against by the majority of congress. The Depression was devistating after a stern momentum in the roaring 20’s, this fallout allowed for a monopoly of bank and stock procurement for next to nothing, the foresighted international bankers receded from the market days before its collapse. A collapse deliberatlely carried out by this group of banking cartels to ensure their ownership of our currency. The legislation for a centralized, corporately fueled banking system was then instituted to prevent further falicies in our stock market. This was the beginning of a very dynamic and increasingly dilapitating gorging of the people’s resources and freedoms. After our mints were stolen, then the gold standard was burglarized, during the depression cash for gold was a mandatory process, forcing people to give away their last precious resource in exchange for worthless paper. The FED has kept this vice grip on our nation for decades,