The worldwide financial and economic collapse that, in 2008, caused millions of workers to be laid off and thousands of home owners to lose their property led the United States into a great economic recession. The stock market failure, speculation, ignorance, and failure of business professionals were only some of the explanations for the crisis. Charles H. Ferguson, director of Inside Job, analyzes and critiques Wall Street officials and the economic and financial systems that were involved in the destruction of the economy in the fall of 2008. Ferguson confronts many individuals, such as Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman-Sachs, and takes news reports and congressional hearings that showcase the faults in Wall Street and the financial …show more content…
Deregulation is the reduction or complete elimination of government power in a particular industry, specifically the financial sector in this case. It is usually enacted to create more competition within the industry; however, it also allows businesses and companies to make riskier moves. This “however” is the main reason why deregulation can be considered one of the leading causes of the recession. In the documentary, Ferguson references one of the first acts of deregulation that had a negative outcome. This event was the merging of Citicorp and Travelers Group into Citigroup in 1998. This merge directly opposed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that was enacted during the Great Depression – it prohibited commercial banks from engaging in the investment business. But, the Federal Reserve did not question or challenge the act. This led to the passage of the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act that consequently allowed “large financial institutions [to] combine the activities of commercial banking, investment banking, and insurance with significant monopoly and lobbying power” without regulation (Biktimirov). A major downfall of risky business caused by deregulation occurred in 2004, when Henry Paulson, the CEO of Goldman-Sachs, successfully lobbied the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to relax leverage limits for investment banks – which resulted in the incredibly risky leverage ratio for the five major investment banks of nearly 33:1. Between 2001 and 2007, many investment banks borrowed heavily to purchase a greater amount of debt contracts to create and then sell more profitable collateralized debt obligations due to the lack of regulation by the government, a risky move. Also brought up in the documentary as evidence are the congressional hearings that displayed the SEC’s
Consequently, the provisions to separate commercial banking from securities and investment firms were regarded as a way to diminish the risk associated with providing such deposit insurance. Although some historians argue that the depression itself is what caused the collapse of the banking system, in 1933 the general consensus was that banks had provoked the failure by engaging in shady and abusive practices with depositor’s money. Congressional hearings conducted in early 1933 seemed to indicate that bankers and brokers were guilty of “disreputable and seemingly dishonest dealings, and gross misuses of the public's trust” (“Understanding How”, 1998). The Glass Steagall act was the main legislative response of President Roosevelt’s administration to the unprecedented financial turmoil that was facing the nation in the middle of a deep depression. It was intended to regulate and stabilize the banking industry, reduce risk, and provide consumers with confidence in the financial
...o turn their securities back into AIG and demand billions of dollars. AIG was faced with a problem and they had to start asking subsidiary insurance companies to liquidate their pension and insurance holdings so they could cover their losses. If this happened those customers would have received a fraction of the money due to them and would ensure a global crisis. Of all the people complaining about AIG, Goldman-Sachs was doing it the most frequently and the loudest. An audit of AIG showed that they had no liquidity to pay off the bulk of what they owed so the Federal government issued a bail out of $80 billion which later elevated to $200 billion. Goldman-Sachs received the largest percentage of that $200 billion and would have torched the entire country in order to get that money that felt they deserved; and the housing-market bubble was just at the beginning of it.
In Karen Hos’ Liquidated, she aims to study the relationships between corporate America and the world’s greatest financial center. . . Wall Street. The. She puts all her three years of research in her ethnography and thus on the very first page of chapter one, we can already understand Hos’ determination to understand what Wall Street is all about. The first main theme explained is the relations on Wall Street that are based on a culture of domination of staff members, their irresponsibility dealing with corporate America, and constant changes that occur during this process.
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 because there have been a lot of bad practices and a lot of bad ideas". The 2007 financial crisis was composed of the fall of many major financial institutions, an unknown increase in mortgage loan defaults, and the derived freezing up of credit availability (Brue). It was the result from risky mortgage loans and falling estate values (Brue) . Additionally, the financial crisis of 2007 was the result of underestimation of risk by faulty insurance securities made to protect holders of mortgage-back securities from risk of default and holders of mortgage-backed securities (Brue). Even to present day, America stills suffers from the aftermaths of the financial crisis.
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 Americans. The real blame for this crisis rests on the heads of the managers that attempted to play the financial system through securitization, and forced the American government to “bail out” their companies with taxpayer money. These managers, specifically the managers of AIG and Citigroup, should be subject to extreme pay caps for the length of time that the American taxpayer holds majority holdings in their companies, as a punitive punishment for causing the Great Recession.
Rather, deregulation led to opportunities which in turn altered peoples' incentives. It was the mindset and incentives of people which ultimately led to numerous failures. Although not discussed in detail, the incentives of all the people involved played a big part in the severity of the thrift crisis, not only the incentives of the thrift managers. Politicians, regulators, brokers, other investors, etc… all had incentives of their own as well. They ignored signals of insolvency and tired to postpone the "day of reckoning" until someone else took over and became responsible.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the reform that followed the Great Depression. It made changes in the American financial regulatory environment that affect all federal financial regulatory agencies and almost every part of the nation’s financial services industry. Like Glass-Steagall, the legislation passed after the Great Depression, it sought to regulate the financial markets and make another economic crisis less likely. Banks were deregulated in 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and essentially allowed for the excessive risk taken on by banks that caused the most recent financial crisis. The Financial Stability Oversight Council was established through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and was created to address the systemic risks in the United States financial system and to improve coordination among financial regulators.
Presently after the accident certain change demonstrations must be set up to again settle the business sector. One of the strides that was taken was the setting up of the Securities and Exchange Commission or the SEC. The part of this establishment was to set out the business sector administers and rebuff if there should be an occurrence of any infringement of the laws. An Act called the Glass-Stegall Act was passed. This demonstration told that the business and the venture banks could no more have any relationship between them. In any case, as the time passed the government guidelines and the Glass-Stegall standard have changed all things considered. The other change that was presented was the foundation of the Federal store Insurance Corporation or the FDIC. This was intended to see that every single individual ledger was guaranteed up to $100000. (The 1929
In this presentation, I’m going to explain how the key roles worked together to create the 2008 financial crisis.
During the prologue, it is described that a financial analyst, Meredith Whitney, made national headlines for successfully predicting that Citigroup firm needs to “slash its dividend or go bust.” This book makes gives the impression that Whitney started the beginning of the economic collapse. This seems unlikely; Whitney only made the prediction that she made based off of her analysis of the markets. Fortunately, she gained the nation's ear. She called out all Wall Street firms and told them that their investments and mortgages were worthless. She was bold and truthful when the everyone else doubted her.
The subject of Inside Job is the global financial crisis of 2008. It features research and extensive interviews with financiers, politicians, journalists, and academics. The film follows a narrative that is split into five parts. The five parts discussed are The Foundation, Mortgage Boom, The Crisis, Accountability, Where are we now.
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.
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).
During the 1920s, approximately 20 million Americans took advantage of post-war prosperity by purchasing shares of stock in various securities exchanges. When the stock market crashed in 1929, the fortunes of many investors were lost. In addition, banks lost great sums of money in the Crash because they had invested heavily in the markets. When people feared their banks might not be able to pay back the money that depositors had in their accounts, a “run” on the banking system caused many bank failures. After the crash, public confidence in the market and the economy fell sharply. In response, Congress held hearings to identify the problems and look for solutions; the answer was found in the new SEC. The Commission was established in 1934 to enforce new securities laws that were passed with the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The two new laws stated that “Companies publicly offering securities must tell the public the truth about their businesses, the securities they are selling and the risks involved in the investing.” Secondly, “People who sell and trade securities must treat investors fairly and honestly, putting investors’ interests first.”2
Eight years ago, the world economy crashed. Jobs were lost, families misplaced, hundreds of thousands of people left shocked and confused as they watched the security of their world fall to pieces around them. In, “The Big Short,” a film directed by Adam McKay and based on the book written by Michael Lewis, viewers get an inside perspective on how the financial crisis of 2008 really happened. Viewers learn the truth about the unethical actions and irrational justifications made by those who unwittingly set the world up for failure. Two main ethically tied decisions are brought into question when watching the film: how could anyone conscionably make the decision to mislead investors by misrepresenting mortgage backed securities (MBS), and why