2) The financial crisis of the late 2000s resulted in enormous costs to the economies of many countries and the fortunes of millions of families, and it challenged a host of our conceptions and theories of corporate governance. The governing boards of many financial-services firms seemed unable to prevent the risky and ill-fated decisions that jeopardized their firms, devastated their investors, and helped precipitate a financial meltdown that morphed into global recession .
An important lesson from the subprime financial crisis was that tarders taking huge positions in a derivatives market were highly dangerous. Trading activities, although often highly profitable, are dangerous because they make it easy for financial institutions and their
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Company boards were directly responsible through their compensation committees and consultant advisors for a sharp rise in executive compensation during the 2000s that may have contributed to undue short-term risk-taking among the financial service companies that helped spark the recession . Moreover, defective corporate governance processes attributed to the failure of risk management systems in many of the failed banks. Boards of failed banks did not take into consideration the risk factors before approving the company strategy. Company 's disclosures of about the foreseeable risk factors and about systems for monitoring and managing risk were obviously lacking in many banks. The accounting and regulatory environment was even not efficacious. Again Kirkpatrick (2009) stated that remuneration systems were not aligned to the company 's risk appetite, strategy and long-term sustainability of the company . Buiter (2009) pointed out that there was very little transparency on off-balance sheet items of complex financial products and the risk financial institutions were carrying for the shareholders of the company
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.
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.
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.
In 2008 the worst financial crisis since the great depression hit and left many people wondering who should be responsible. Many Americans supported the prosecution of Wall Street. To this day there have still not been any arrests of any executive on Wall Street for the financial collapse. Many analysts point out that greed of executives was one of the many factors in the crisis. I will talk about subprime loans, ill-intent, punishments, and white collar crime.
Obviously, financial establishments can endure breathtaking misfortunes notwithstanding when their risk management is top notch. They are, all things considered, in the matter of going out on a limb. At the point when risk management fails, be that as it may, it is in one of the many fundamental ways, almost every one of them exemplified in the present emergency. In some cases, the issue lies with the information or measures that risk directors depend on. At times it identifies with how they recognize and impart the risks an organization is presented to. Financial risk management is difficult to get right in the best of times.
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.
Bibliography: Turnbull, S. (1997). Corporate governance: its scope, concerns and theories. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 5 (4), pp. 180--205.
Organizations that only have top management as the board members are more susceptible to accounting malpractices. Members of the board should preferably own shares in the company to ensure diligence when it comes to the interests of the company. Apart from the Board of Governors, there should also be an audit committee in place to oversee the financial dealings of the bank. Members of the board and the audit committee should have basic financial knowledge. Some of the members should also be experts in finances so that they can detect any anomaly that may take place in terms of financial reporting. An overhaul of the regulatory framework is required to empower authorities to intervene immediately, and make improvements. New technology is required. Manual antiquated processes should be eliminated because this causes greater human error and poor
The recent Global Financial Crisis (GFC) initially began with the collapse of credits and financial markets, which caused by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US in 2007. The sub-prime mortgages were given to high-risk lenders (with bad credit history) who were in danger of defaulting, which eventually caused a global credit crunch, where the banks were unwilling to lend to each other. In October 2008, the collapse of the major financial institutions and the crash of stock markets marked the peak of this global economic slowdown (Euromonitor International, 2008).
Nottingham Trent University. (2013). Lecture 1 - An Introduction to Corporate Governance. Available: https://now.ntu.ac.uk/d2l/le/content/248250/viewContent/1053845/View. Last accessed 16th Dec 2013.
Most critical to this discussion is a clear understanding of what a financial manager is and does and how his or her role aids in helping to establish the valuation of a corporate entity in today's global financial market. Quite simply, a financial manager helps to measure a company's market value and its risk while also helping to systematically reduce its costs and the time necessary to make informed decisions regarding objective driven operations. This is quite a demanding game plan for an individual and most often financial managers, in the corporate world, work in cooperation with a team of financial experts. Each member of that team perhaps having expertise in differing areas of activity, but each however, being no less expert in his or her respective area of endeavors in behalf of the corporation. The team is assembled under the direction of the officer know in the corporation as the Chief Financial Officer who today is becoming increasingly indispensable to the CEO who directs a modern model of action driven, bottom-line oriented corporate activity (Couto, Neilson, 2004). One can accurately state that the role of the competent and capable financial manager is figuratively worth its weight in gold.
There has been a drive towards corporate governance which has been driven by a greater need for shareholder protection. If investors feel well cushioned then there is a higher chance that t...
The failure of adequate board accountability has indicated strong adverse effects on corporate performance including, the bankruptcy of various public companies, thereby casting serious doubt on the credibility and efficacy of board accountability. For example, Lehman Brothers scandal, the largest bankruptcy in U.S history, Northern Rock was a large failure of a financial institution in the United Kingdom (Hull 2015:16). In Ireland, the Anglo-Irish Bank created a huge bubble that plunged the state into economic recession. In September 28, 2008, the Irish Government signed into law, the “bank guarantee” which provided with immediate effect a guarantee arrangement to safeguard all deposits in retail, commercial, institutional and interbank transactions, covered bonds, senior debt and dated subordinated debt (Lenihan 2008). Banks in Ireland clearly needed yet more capital from the State (Irish Times 19 November 2011) and this underscores the need for the government’s bailout
A variety of groups are concerned in bank profitability for various reasons. The bank shareholders would want to know if the value of their investments is high or low. The investors also use current and past performance to predict future price of the banks’ shares traded on the stock exchanged. The management of the bank as trustee of the shareholders is evaluated and compensated on the basis of how well their decisions and planning have contributed to growth in assets and profits of their banks. Employees of bank also are concerned with profits, since their salaries and promotions are frequently tied to the profitability performance of their banks. Depositors use bank performance and profitability as indicators of security for their deposits in the banks. Finally, business community and general public are concerned about their banks’ performance to the extent that their economic prosperity is linked to the success or failure of their banks.