SOURCE: CREATIVE COMMONS / FLICKR / IMAGES OF MONEY |
Now, i'm going to explain deeper the causes of one of the most horrible crisis the United states have suffered:
The immediate cause of the crisis was the burst of the housing bubble. Against a backdrop of abundant credit, low interest rates, and rising house prices, lending standards were relaxed to the point that many people were able to buy houses they couldn't afford. When prices began to fall and loans started going bad, there was a severe shock to the financial system. Imprudent lendindg certainly played a role, but subprime loans, which are loans issued to people with poor credit histories, were a relatively small part of the overall U.S mortgage market and of total credit market debt outstanding.
http://rightfromyaad.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/is-this-happening-again-a-new-us-housing-bubble-say-it-isnt-so/ |
Securitization
Securitization fosteres the "originate-to-distribute" model, which reduced lenders' incentives to be prudent, especially in the face of vast investor demand for subprime loans packaged as AAA bonds.
Ownership mortgage-backed securities was widely dispersed, causing repercussions throughout the global system when subprime loans went bad in 2007.
The credit Rating Agencies gave AAA ratings to numerous issues of subprime mortgage-backes securities, many of wchich were subsequently downgraded to junk status. Critics cite poor economic models, conflict od interest, and lack of effective regulation as reasons for the rating agencies' failure. Another factor is the market's excessive reliance on ratings, which has been reinforces by numerous laws and regulations that "use ratings as criterion for permissable investments or as a fctor in required capital levels" (Jickling, 2010)
The Crisis:
According to the movie Inside Job by Charles Ferguson, the market for CDOs collapsed and investment banks were left with billions of dollars in loans, CDOs and real estate couldn't unload. In 2008 Bear Stearns ran out of cahs, the Federal Government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had been on the brink of collapse. Also Lehman Brothers collapsed. Merrill Lynch which was about to collapse, was acquired by Bank of America. Hank Poulson and Timothy Geithner decided that Lehman must go on into bankruptcy making Wall Street panic. Two days later Poulson and Ben Bernanke, Fed chairman, asked Congress for $700 billion to bailout the banks, even if million of people and some congressists opposed this action.
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http://www.neoformix.com/2008/BushSpeechOnFinancialCrisisFAIL.html |
References:
- FERGUSON, Charles. Inside Job, 2010.
- JICKLING, Mark. Causes of the Financial Crisis. 2010. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/r40173.pdf
- BAKER, Dean. The housing bubble and the financial crisis. 2008.http://paecon.net/PAEReview/issue46/Baker46.pdf
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