¶ … Member of the Board of Lehman Bros. As a member of the Board of Lehman Brothers in 2008, I can attest to the fact that none of us knew what we were doing: we were of a bygone age of banking, one that existed before the world of high finance had suddenly and virtually overnight taken on a new persona -- thanks to deregulatory practices and new schemes based on the securitization model invented by Lewis Ranieri of Salomon Brothers (Lewis, 1989). It became a world in which massive profits could be made (or looked as though they could be made) in no time at all, whereas in the past it would have taken years, decades to amass this kind of fortune. We did not understand it, but we approved it by our silence and resignation: we trusted the traders and managing directors who seemed to know this world better than we did. It was a world of "mass securitization, credit-default swaps, derivatives trading, and all the risks those products created" (Berman, 2008). And just like Enron's Board, which failed to truly appreciate the scope of the problems arising under Fastow and Skilling, we too failed to see that there...
I can say that it happened overnight, but even that is stretching it a bit. Michael Lewis was writing about this sort of thing back in the 1980s and told the story in Liar's Poker and told it well. If we had been paying attention we might have checked our traders before they wrecked the company through their reckless buying of sub-prime mortgage bonds. We presumed, like so many others, that our friends in government would bail us out. Our friends, however, stabbed us in the back: we weren't to be one of the chosen few -- like Goldman or JPM -- to survive the bubble bursting.
Sorkin's book does a good job of giving the details on what happened among Lehman Brothers, Barclays, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, the Fed, and Big Gov following the collapse. Essentially, everyone had egg on his face -- but some of the bigger powers had the muscle to save face -- and sink competitors at the same time: which is exactly what Goldman Sachs did to Lehman. Goldman had been placing
The U.S. is a property owning civilization and a number of the people wanted land and housing. Americans however scarcely ever create savings. "The country itself lives on other countries' savings by issuing bonds to finance its excessive consumption. The current crisis began with cheap housing loans offered by banks. Banks provided loans but instead of holding the loan in their books, they packaged them into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)
Running head: The COVID- Slowdown and the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008 1The COVID-19 Slowdown and the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008 14The COVID-19 Slowdown and the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008Coronavirus virus, commonly known as COVID-19, has caused the world\\\'s greatest fear since the 2008 global financial crisis. With its rapid transmission rate, the World Health Organization announced that it had surpassed the epidemic situation to a pandemic. The
Global Financial Crisis and Resurgence of Keynesian Economic Model The 2007-2008 global financial crises have been identified as the worst financial crisis apart from the 1930s Great Depression. The collapse of Lehman Brothers and two Bear Stearns in 2007 had been attributed to subprime mortgage crisis that led to the credit crunch, dry up of liquidity, bank failures, massive layoffs and private defaults. Moreover, the crisis threatens the collapse of
2007 Economic Crisis on American Car market Effect of the 2008 global economic crisis on automotive industries Crisis in the United States Crisis in Canada Crisis in Russia Crisis in European markets Crisis in Asian markets Effects by other related crisis events In this paper, we will review the effects of 2008 global automotive crisis. Our main focus will be on the American car manufacturers and the negative impact they suffered due to the crisis. We will
These two factors would cause the economy to experience a sudden erosion of economic stability. At which point, a new Administration would begin: massive spending and enacting various regulations to address the causes of the Great Depression. This would help to provide stability to: the economy and it created a foundation for placing some kind of support in the different economic structures (i.e. banks / the stock market). What
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