Having proper supervision and financial regulation is key to prevent a financial crisis, such as the one that took place from 2007-2009, from happening. In order to understand the role financial regulation and supervision played in causing this crisis, one must look at the events that lead up to it. This essay will briefly examine the events in the US economy leading up to and during the crisis in order to establish the weakness in regulation and supervision.
Firstly, financial innovation in the mortgage market allowed for households to be assigned a numerical number, determining the probability of them being able to repay loans. Computers allowed for securitization to take place, which is considered a leading cause in the financial crisis. This also allowed got banks to offer subprime mortgages to borrowers who otherwise would not qualify. Thus resulting in the creation of mortgage backed securities.
This financial innovation in the mortgage market is important, as weak regulation and supervision of these loans paired with the greed of brokers lead to a financial crisis. The mortg...
The financial crisis of 2007–2008 is considered by many economists the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This crisis resulted in the threat of total collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments, and downturns in stock markets around the world. The crisis led to a series of events including: the 2008–2012 global recessions and the European sovereign-debt crisis. The reasons of this financial crisis are argued by economists. The performance of the Federal Reserve becomes a focal point in this argument.
Leading up to the crisis of the housing market, borrowers got mortgages without understanding the terms. Banks were giving out loans to people the banks weren't sure could pay the money back. The closer to the crisis, the higher the frequency of illegitimate loans and mortgages. Because there were so many mortgages on houses that could not be paid back, millions of mortgages were foreclosed on, and the houses we...
A majority of mortgage defaults that Americans used were on subprime mortgage loans, which were high-interest-rate loans lent to people with high risk credit rates (Brue). Despite knowing the risks, the Federal government encouraged major banks to lend out these loans to buyers, in hopes, of broadening ho...
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s policies haven’t really been implemented to the extent that regulators would have liked. Although the legislation takes many steps in addressing systematic risks in the United States financial system and improving coordination among regulators, some critics believe that alternative options might have been more effective. The coming years will give us a better understanding of how well the Dodd-Frank Act addressed these concerns.
The Sub-Prime Mortgages Crisis has had a great effect on the economy. It was a manmade crisis and it could have been avoided. Lack of ethics played a large role in the creation of this crisis as they were the root of most of the causes. By making unaffordable lending illegal and by lending banks money so they are willing to give people affordable credit to spend, the government has helped to stimulate the economy. And while there is still a long was to go on improving the economy, it is nowhere near as bad as it was.
It can be argued that the economic hardships of the great recession began when interest rates were lowered by the Federal Reserve. This caused a bubble in the housing market. Housing prices plummeted, home prices plummeted, then thousands of borrowers could no longer afford to pay on their loans (Koba, 2011). The bubble forced banks to give out homes loans with unreasonably high risk rates. The response of the banks caused a decline in the amount of houses purchased and “a crisis involving mortgage loans and the financial securities built on them” (McConnell, 2012 p.479). The effect on the economy was catastrophic and caused a “pandemic” of foreclosures that effected tens of thousands home owners across the U.S. (Scaliger, 2013). The debt burden eventually became unsustainable and the U.S. crisis deepened as the long-term effect on bank loans would affect not only the housing market, but also the job market.
Investment banks, Rating agencies and Insurance companies are key components of the financial market. In this presentation, I’m going to explain how these three key roles worked together to create the 2008 financial crisis.
The monetary policies that caused the financial crisis were that the Federal bank reserves provided banks with new funds that enabled them to make loans and investments. The process led to increase in money supply which in due course increased the rate of spending (Flores, Leigh & Clements, 2009). Eventually, the increase in spending over and beyond the capacity the economy to produce goods and services led to inflation.
The recession officially began when the 8 trillion dollar housing bubble burst. (State of Working America, 2012) Prior to that, institutions bundled mortgage debt into derivatives that were sold to financial investors. Derivatives were initially intended to manage risk and to protect against the downside, but the investors used them to take on more risk to maximize their profits and returns. (Zucchi, 2010). The investors bought insurance against losses that might arise from securities so that they could secure their money. Mortgage defaults unexpectedly skyrocketed, which caused securitization and the insurance structure to collapse. (McConnell, Brue, Flynn, 2012). The moral hazard problem arose. The large firm investors thought they were too big for the government to allow them to fail. They had the incentive to make even more risky investment.
In October of 1929, the American economy took a huge hit from the stock market crash. Since so much people had invested their money and time in the banks, when the banks closed many had lost all of their money and were in the deep poverty. Because of this, one of my first actions of the New Deal was the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Every bank in the United States had to abide by this rule. This banking program I launched not only ensured the safety and protection of deposits made my users of banks, but had also restored America’s faith in banks, causing people to once again use banks which contributed in enriching the economy. Another legislation I was determined to get passed...
There is a vast amount of literature available on the additional procyclicality of regulatory capital charges in Pillar 1 of Basel II. In this section, we shall briefly visit this literature and see if any conclusions can be drawn from this, before proceeding to the conclusion and mitigation of these procyclical effects. The majority of the literature, as expected, focuses primarily on the IRB approach, as this aspect of Basel II has drawn the most criticism from financial practitioners and academics alike. The greater part of this literature has found that there is an overwhelmingly substantial rise in procyclicality of minimum regulatory capital charges originating from the IRB approach. Gordy and Howells found that under the IRB approach, volatility in the capital charge, relative to the mean, is between 0.1 to 0.26 (Gordy & Howells, 2004). This follows another study by Kashyap and Stein, which shows that capital charges rose by 70-90% during the years of 1998 to 2002 dependant of the model used to calculate PD’s (Goodhart & Taylor, 2004).
The "subprime crises" was one of the most significant financial events since the Great Depression and definitely left a mark upon the country as we remain upon a steady path towards recovering fully. The financial crisis of 2008, became a defining moment within the infrastructure of the US financial system and its need for restructuring. One of the main moments that alerted the global economy of our declining state was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, September 14, 2008 and after this the economy began spreading as companies and individuals were struggling to find a way around this crisis. (Murphy, 2008) The US banking sector was first hit with a crisis amongst liquidity and declining world stock markets as well. The subprime mortgage crisis was characterized by a decrease within the housing market due to excessive individuals and corporate debt along with risky lending and borrowing practices. Over time, the market apparently began displaying more weaknesses as the global financial system was being affected. With this being said, this brings into question about who is actually to assume blame for this financial fiasco. It is extremely hard to just assign blame to one individual party as there were many different factors at work here. This paper will analyze how the stakeholders created a financial disaster and did nothing to prevent it as the credit rating agencies created an amount of turmoil due to their unethical decisions and costly mistakes.
Keeping in mind that the main reason for the mortgage crisis is the high number of defaulted home loans, which triggered foreclosures and sell offs. The other four contributing factors include high-risk loans, the bust in the housing market, mortgage fraud, and speculation. High-risk loans are loans that are over leveraged, where the financing is done more than the suggested values to be given. (Greenspan) This can result in immediate sell off when the property falls below that loan amount and to avoid further loss the banks start raising the installment. The housing market has seen pressure as a result of the over pressure on most homeowners by increasing rates. This affects people ability to make the payments, resulting in defaults. This is the problem with the burst in the housing market. The third major factor that is causing the mortgage crisis is, mortgage fraud.
Mortgage loans are a substantial form of revenue for the financial industry. Mortgage loans generate billions of dollars in the financial industry. It is no secret that companies have the ability to make a lot of money by offering a variety of mortgage loan products. The problem was not mortgage loans but that mortgage companies were using unethical behavior to get consumer mortgage loans approved. Unfortunately, the Countrywide Financial case was not an isolated case. Many top name mortgage companies have been guilty of unethical behavior. Just as the American housing market was starting to recover from its worst battering since the Great Depression, a new scandal, an epidemic of flawed or fraudulent mortgage documents, threatens to send not just the housing market but the entire economy back into a tailspin (Nation, 2010).
Financial crises have influenced the os of financial markets in past. The most important the Great Depression in 1929-30, the 1970s inflation failures and the banking difficulties in the 1990s led to problems in the financial markets causing serious disturbance. The recent financial crisis which became known in 2007, though the roots were implanted much earlier, has been the worst situation financial markets have ever faced.