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2008 Recession Research Paper

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8.5 million jobs lost; high unemployment; the value of houses are not worth as much as people originally paid for (David Wessel, The Wall Street Journal). These are the repercussions of the 2008 recession that has significantly altered the state of the United States economy, destroying $11 trillion of their net worth. The sign of the economic crisis was evident as the Occupy demonstrations spread to scores of cities and called for radical changes in the banking system. However, due to the optimism of bankers, they responded by saying how the resolution was to ‘get back to business.’ Despite how the real reasoning behind the cause of the recession in 2008 is yet to be determined, the main event that happened during the crisis was the rise of …show more content…
Through the optimism of the bankers and investors accompanied by the soaring housing prices, countless cheap money and easy loans generated along with the creation of the credit default swap; and the crash of major banks, these were the crucial factors that led to the recession in 2008. First, the optimism of bankers and investors triggered the start of the economic crisis as they refused to believe the economy was crumbling because it was doing too ‘good’ to fail. As investors see the positive and profitable chance of gaining money, they were incentivized to purchase shares with the expectations of making money. The surge of this action eventually made the economy stuck in a bubble as investors felt it was an easy opportunity to gain money since it was safe and secure. Mob mentality drove the process of the bubble on action. The bubble itself was the housing bubble. However, consumers and bankers had undermined the problem that the prices were not driven …show more content…
As banks absorbed and created toxic mortgage, assets, it led to their disfunction. Citigroup, for example, crumbled twenty-six percent and was falling. Though Citigroup was eventually saved because the government needed to keep super-bank CitiGroup afloat in the belief that they were ‘too big to fail’. However, this did not stem the unfolding disaster. Later, Bear Stearns was the first to crack. The primary reason was that they were big in mortgages and big in packaging them and creating securities out of them, buying them. However, it then went spiraling out of control (David Faber). Fortunately, Bear Stearns was bailed out to prevent a chain reaction. Yet, it eventually hit. The world’s fourth largest investment bank, Lehman Brothers. They’re having to bring in a quarter of a trillion dollars a day, that goes out the next morning, just to survive (Ron Suskind). Unlike previous examples, Henry Paulson delivered the message that there would be no government bailout. Paulson himself had bet the markets would ‘self-correct’ in the long run. However, he was proven to be wrong. Everything freezed, igniting the start of the crisis. And it really started because Lehman Brothers went into bankruptcy (Charles Duhigg). Lehman collapses, and there were shock waves through the world financial system, all

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