2008 Financial Crisis Essay

These “bank runs” caused even more banks to close down, and by the end of the decade, around 9,000 banks had to close down. The surviving ones became skeptical of loans and were not willing

If there was ever a word to describe the events that led up to the financial crisis of ’08, “Moral Hazard” would fit the bill perfectly. Moral hazard happens in financial terms when the success of a particular transaction is very heavily dependent on the performance of a particular party’s obligations, but where a particular party has no interest or incentive to carry out that obligation diligently. Let’s for instance take the example of a loan worth $720K, which was given to a strawberry picker earning around$14K/year to acquire a certain piece of property in the early 2000’s . In this case moral hazard was there and existed because the loan company intended to sell the loan forward to the credit rating agencies due to the inability of the

It all began with the stock market crash of October 1929. One of the main reasons the stock market crashed is because some of the largest tycoons all the way down to janitors put their savings into stocks causing the stock market to experience rapid expansion. The stock market began to be in debt due to unemployment and production issues. According to the text, “The Great Depression”, “production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stock prices much higher than their actual value. Additionally, wages at that time were low, consumer debt was high, the agricultural part of the economy was struggling due to drought and falling food prices and banks had an excess of large loans that could not be paid back”.

Overall, it was the combination of the desire for money mixed with ignorance towards making quality financial decisions that led to the financial crisis. 2. In the past, to get a mortgage you had to go through a series of steps; list them. Show up at the bank with tax records, pay stubs (to verify your income) and proof that you have enough savings to make a 20% down payment

Even though many factors contributed to cause the Great depression, many argue that the biggest contributor was the stock market crash in 1929. During the years, previous to the recession, real state became very popular market to invest in. People were borrowing a great deal of money from banks to invest on purchasing lands, fixing roads, building houses, and buying houses. Even though people did not have enough money to repay their loans, they continued to borrow more, because of low tax returns. People believed that if they waited longer to invest, prices and interest rates will increase.

People buy way over their head, and what they can afford, and end up defaulting on their loans. Which in turn makes it so banks are not getting their money back that they lent out. Unemployment also plays a role into it. Right now, unemployment rates are lower than the last couple years, but jobs also have been created due to the natural disasters we’ve experienced here in Texas, and Florida. Such as medical, and food services

However, the recession of 2007 was affected largely by the house bubble collapsing. The financial industries had designed complex ways for people to receive lends. There was a larger risk later that neither the investors of firms

half of its value in a month (Oakes 719). During the 1920s, the shift from an agricultural economy to a consumer goods based economy was taking place (Oakes 719). The shift caused crops to be valued very low, causing many people being to be unemployed, spending of what little savings they had, and then relying on “rickety credit and financial systems” (Oakes 719-720). Something very similar can be observed between the cause of the great depression and the most recent economic disaster. In both disasters, banks made risky investments or gave out risky loans, which lead to a much more disastrous financial meltdown (Oakes 720).

A housing bubble was created by banks liberally mortgaging out homes to anyone no matter their credit and bundling mortgages together and selling them to other banks. Because of how they were bundled their credit ratings never reflected the actual risk involved; this practice was unethical but profitable until the system collapsed in 2008 and caused massive losses for both banks and homeowners. The losses were so drastic that Congress voted to bail out several of the banks at the expense of the taxpayers, many of whom were unemployed and facing foreclosure. The economy today is still recovering as interest rates and unemployment continue to return to

For years the banking company sold subprime mortgages to companies and home owners. A subprime mortgage is a type of loan granted to individuals with poor credit histories (often below 600), who, as a result of their deficient credit ratings, would not be able to qualify for conventional mortgages (Carther, S. (2007, September 2). What is a subprime mortgage? Retrieved August 2, 2015.). In some cases, there were obvious red flags that should suggest the seller would not be able to afford to their mortgage.

This was a high risk high reward bargain that paid off in the end. Banks were making money off their mortgage loans they were selling off in synthetic CDO’s. These debts were actually worthless. When the housing market and Wall Street crashed, many lost their investments. These were meant to be safe investments but because of the actions of the banks, mortgage brokers and many other factors, millions lost everything.

In Addition to maldistribution stood the credit structure of the economy, some farmers were in deep land mortgage debt, so they lowered their crop prices in order to regain credit, and because the farmers were no longer accountable for what they owed banks. Across the nation the banking system found themselves in constant trouble. In America both small and large bankers were concerned for their survival, so they began investing recklessly in stock markets and granting unwise loans. These unconscious decisions would lead a large consequence, such as families losing their life savings and their deposits became uninsured. “ More than 9,000 American banks either went bankrupt or closed their doors to avoid bankruptcy between 1930 and 1933.”Although

The lack of responsibility in the government and banks led to the downturn in the economy now known as the great recession. (document I) Starting in 2007 there was a noticeable increase in mortgage

Sheree R. Curry article talks about 5 contributing factors in the housing market crash, low doc loans, Adjustable rate mortgages, equity line of credit, more money down needed and mortgage insurance. Low Doc Loans are loans that do not require much information and do not require borrowers to provide documentation of their income to lenders, Adjustable rate mortgages were made to adjust periodically to reflect market conditions, equity line of credit is a loan in which the lender agrees to lend a maximum amount of money and has to be paid by a certain time, you also need more money down “minimum has now increased to 10% down.” This quote shows increase in a down payment, mortgage insurance used to get replaced by people putting 20 percent down on a FHA-backed mortgage and avoid paying the

A risky investment if the homeowners were unable to repay the mortgage. This proved to be the case when the US economy and housing market crashed in 2008 and Lehman Brothers had billions of dollars invested in the subprime mortgage market and homeowners had no money to repay the