Too Good To Be True:
Investigating Perspectives of the 2008 Financial Crash
“IN THE YEARS LEADING UP TO THE CRISIS THE RISE OF HOUSING PRICES BENEFITTED EVERY ACTOR AND NO ONE WANTED THE ORGY TO END.” - Peter Madsen
No one questioned the utopia -- borrowing money was cheap and easy, and people across the board could afford things that had once seemed out of reach. Then, suddenly, it was too expensive for people to keep up -- high default rates swept the entire country, and the unsuspecting financial system imploded . . . CRASH! Everyone and everything, from the everyday American to the US economy, were hit. The US lost $648 billion dollars, and average homeowners lost up to $5800 each. 5.5 million jobs were lost. “The U.S. lost $3.4 trillion in real estate wealth from July 2008 to March 2009 according to the Federal Reserve. This is roughly $30,300 per U.S. household” (Swagel). Stock value plummeted 7.4 trillion dollars. Protests started all across the country, such as the Occupy Wall Street movement. Many other countries from Europe to the Middle East suffered the repercussions. This was the second largest financial failure in history, after the Great Depression (Swagel).
Many people are confounded by the economic crisis of 2008 and why it happened. The lack of understanding of the economy is actually a huge reason why this crash was able to happen. Everyday people didn’t understand what they were signing, and whether or not they could realistically afford to pay back what they were borrowing. This practice went beyond the wealth of average Americans. It affected the practices of major institutions across the world. Banks did not inspect what they were buying and selling; they were just happy to make a profit, and the government didn’t catch on because it wasn’t paying attention. The complicated nature of this problem is what made it so powerful and caused an unstoppable hemorrhage in the American economy. Almost a decade later, it is imperative for everyday people to fully understand the 2008 financial crash and listen to the various perspectives about the major crisis from those involved in the financial industry. Such knowledge will allow people to interpret this dire event in history for themselves and recognize the signs of economic collapse in the future.
What Happened in the Financial Crash of 2008?
The Crash of 2008 was caused by many factors, including banks, regulators, and the stable economy. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, lowered federal interest rates to only one percent, believing that it would maintain the economic growth. This meant that anyone could borrow money and have to pay only an extra one percent interest. The Federal Reserve did this because the economy was not recovering after 9/11, even after severe interest rate cuts; so they decided to lower it even more (“Crash Course”). Low rates caused many banks to borrow a tremendous amount of money from the Federal Reserve. Investors, on the other hand, did not benefit from the low rates and looked for riskier ways to make profit. This imbalance is where the problem begins. The housing market was seen as a great opportunity for both banks and investors. Home buyers worked with mortgage brokers who then worked with mortgage lenders who then worked with banks who then worked with investment firms and hedge funds -- all of this creating a treacherous pyramid built on a shaky foundation. Low interest rates benefited everyday people too by making it easier for people to buy homes. Mortgage lenders began using many practices now called “predatory” in order to get people to borrow money to buy a home (Mathiason). At the time though, this “cheap money” was seen as a sign of the strength of the American Dream. No matter what, you could buy a house! This is a risk, however, because if you could not pay your mortgage payments (default), you lose the house to the bank. Investment bankers would then buy thousands of mortgages by borrowing millions of dollars from the Federal Reserve (remember -- everyone loves cheap money) and then package the mortgages into CDOs (collateralized debt obligation). Then they distribute tranches (parts of the CDOs) to other investors and bankers. This system turns out to very beneficial to everyone and greed kicks in. Mortgage brokers start lending subprime mortgages to very unreliable people: people with horrible credit history and unstable incomes, because the investors and bankers see this risky lending as an opportunity to make millions of dollars in profit. Even if the homeowners defaulted (couldn’t pay their mortgage and lost their home), reckless bankers didn’t care because housing prices were seemingly increasing forever. Someone else would buy their home and need a mortgage. In reality, that was not the way it worked out. Once homeowners started defaulting on their mortgages, housing prices went down because nobody was buying homes and because there were so many for sale. Just like before, each of the pieces needs to work in order for the system to be profitable. When the mortgages stopped being paid and no one was getting a new mortgage, the CDOs became worthless. No one was willing to buy them. People were basically trading nothing even though it seemed to be worth millions. Once the housing market stopped growing, and banks realized they were stuck with these packages of mortgages that were worthless and purchased with borrowed money, the economic crisis became a reality. As people began to stop paying their mortgages and banks became unable to pay their own debts, everyone looked to someone else to carry the burden. Default rates (the number of people not paying their debts) went up to eight percent, an increase that collapsed the entire American, and eventually the world, economic system (Jarvis).
The crash caused a tremendous amount of trouble in the financial system and in the lives of everyday people. “For the first two months of [2008], there was an eerie calm”(Mathiason). Firstly, Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York, who was known for prosecuting the banks, became involved in a scandal that destroyed his reputation. It was starting to become clear to the American people that some banks were struggling, but the person who had been seen as protecting people from the banks was nowhere to be found (Mathiason). Blackstone, a financial firm in New York city, revealed that it had suffered a 90% profit drop because so much of what it owned, it had bought with loaned money (Swagel). Soon many corporations and banks revealed that they were suffering. Carlyle Capital Corporation, the largest private equity firm at the time, admitted it was going to go under. For every one dollar of equity (value of what it owned), the corporation owed 32 dollars in loans. The company was worth 22 billion dollars (“Crash Course”). The government needed to react to save the American financial industry. Bear Stearns received an emergency bailout by the US Federal Reserve during the night when they admitted they were about to go under (Pressler). The US Federal Reserve issued its first bailout. 236 billion dollars was put into the US banking system. Companies didn’t want to cause alarm, so they often said everything was fine until the moment they had to come clean and share that they weren’t going to survive (Mathiason).
Different Opinions Regarding Various Aspects of Financial Crash
The economic crash of 2008 is very intricate and confusing. Because of its sophistication, there are many perspectives and opinions about the various aspects of the crash. One of the main struggles is pinpointing the direct cause. Some think it was caused by the greed of Wall Street. Some think it was the lenders who issued the subprime mortgages and/or the Federal Reserve’s lowering the interest rates. By speaking to people across the financial industry, it becomes clear that even those who understand these complex processes have different views of what happened. It would make it a lot easier if there was a clear single cause. . .
But it’s not that simple. Michael Burry, a very well known American investor who was a hedge fund manager, believes that no one took responsibility for causing the crash because they all found everyone else to blame. Instead, he believes that society should educate people on how to be more virtuous (Pressler). Noah Blitzer, who works for a private equity-firm that invests in transportation and related industries, believes that the greatest factor that allowed for the crash to happen was “was a lack of transparency, coupled with incredibly complicated financial engineering (that only very select people could fully understand) and highly misaligned incentives” (Blitzer). He argues that people were unaware of the risk involved in their actions during the time before the crash. Because the risk was being passed along in the system, nobody was afraid. Subprime mortgages were passed to investment banks and then to private investors and hedge funds, so the people in the middle didn’t care about what happened in the next trade off -- like a game of hot potato that is so complicated that no one understands the rules. Joyce Frater, who works in real estate investment firms and also worked for Morgan Stanley, explains that there was “lots of naivety” and that “there was the frenzy to produce returns that made people fail to look behind the numbers” (Frater). The financial industry was under so much pressure to make a large profit that nobody was concerned with the stability or source of the profit. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve who oversaw the crash of 2008, also thinks that the individuals are the ones to blame because that they had “bad judgement, excessive risk taking” (Bernanke & Stephanopoulos). He also admits that regulations needed to be more strictly enforced. While it is clear that many individuals weren’t paying attention and were more concerned with profit than anything else, it also seems that this may be an oversimplification of a complex issue. By making it about individuals making bad choices, Bernanke is limiting who can be blamed. While it is always nice to have a good guy and a bad guy, many disagree that this is just the result of a few individuals. Peter Madsen, a finance expert who used to work for Bear Stearns and managed 300 people exclusively in mortgage-backed securities, believes that the entire situation has been oversimplified in a way that makes Wall Street the evil cause. He views that the three major weak points -- “horrible economic management, horrible government policy, and horrible regulation” -- ignited the inconspicuous fire that would ultimately collapse the financial system in 2008. For example, there was no regulation in the Credit Default Swaps market and people were careless about what happened with the subprime mortgages. He also argues that the crash was inevitable and people priding themselves in predicting this crash are utterly condescending. Madsen believes that nobody wanted to intervene because this system “BENEFITTED EVERY ACTOR” (Madsen). In Madsen’s view, the government and lack of regulation also needed to take blame. In a system that seems to be making everyone happy, no one wants to question. Clearly, there are many opinions about what caused the crash and which major weak points had the most dramatic effects. And it is clear that the financial system is very sophisticated. As Madsen says, it is impossible to pinpoint a single villain. The US has recovered from the economic crash of 2008, but the question of whether enough has been done to prevent another crash still remains very elusive.
Reactions to Recovery
Similarly to the confusing nature of identifying the root cause of the financial crash of 2008, there is controversy over how well the crash was handled in the aftermath and what more needs to be done. One of the major movements that came about as a result of the crash is the Occupy Wall Street movement. The movement argues against economic inequality and greed and blames Wall Street for allowing this horrific crash to occur. Occupy brought attention to the massive disparity between wealthy and poor in America. The talk of the one percent came from this movement and it brought a lot of attention to the power of the wealthy. At the same time, it blamed Wall Street almost entirely for the disparity (Wood). Noah Blitzer argues that Occupy raised awareness of the issues in the financial industry, but it also allowed for an opportunity for people to “blame other people for a broad set of issues that were more systemic than just the finance industry” (Blitzer). He believes that people must look on both sides of an argument instead of coming up with their own simple and straightforward conclusions. Similarly, Peter Madsen states that this story has been “politically adapted to fit a narrative so that a single villain, Wall Street could be identified” (Madsen). He contends that it is human nature for people to take risks, but it is the responsibility of the government to limit and oversee the risks so that the country is protected. Madsen argues that greed in the financial industry comes from the possibilities allowed by insufficient regulation. While Occupy Wall Street was a powerful reaction to the crash, it also suffered from oversimplification that left out some of the critical components in the crash.
The Federal Government took great pains to pull the financial industry out of turmoil, spending 9 trillion dollars to support the industry (Swagel). In doing so, it also had to take some of the blame. While Bernanke is proud of how the Federal Reserve recovered the economy by taking appropriate actions, similarly to Madsen, Bernanke argues that there should have originally been more regulation with the subprime mortgages. He also reflects that it was “inherently unfair” to help the banks and not so much the people (Bernanke & Stephanopoulos). Americans lost their homes and jobs, but banks received enough money to ensure that CEOs still made millions of dollars in 2008 (“Crash Course”). However, Bernanke also believes that the people who are protesting and asking, “Where is my bailout?”, do not understand the situation fully in the context of what the Federal Reserve accomplished. He believes that the Fed is doing too much because nobody else is doing enough to fix the aftereffects of the crash (Bernanke & Stephanopoulos). While the Federal Government focused on the importance of growing and supporting a stable economy, it also believed that this would help everyday people. While that is true to some extent, people who were kicked out of their homes, lost their jobs, and found themselves in a place of hopelessness weren’t able to experience the benefits of a stable economy for many years.
Looking Forward
While the financial system is growing steadily, it is not an excuse to leave everything behind, forget, or ignore this symbolic moment in history. Everyone must learn from this revealing event of how a poor systematic machine can implode in the least expected and unwanted times. Blitzer explains that it is imperative to “promote more transparency, fiduciary responsibility and more closely align the interests of all parties involved” (Blitzer). There needs to be a lot more clarity in the financial industry and companies need to be held responsible for their decisions. Individuals within the industry also need to take on the responsibility of questioning the risk involved in their decisions. For Blitzer, this means that he takes more time thinking about the range of unlikely things that could happen to an investment as a result of the crash. After ten years though, it seems that 2008 has faded in American memory.
“I think some of the pain is already being forgotten. Institutional investors are already taking on more risk” (Frater). Joyce Frater is slightly apprehensive about the actions taking place in the finance industry currently. She believes that some people in the finance industry are not taking prudent actions even after the Crash. The talk of deregulation is worrying to those who remember what that helped to cause not so long ago. With President Trump’s appointment of several Wall Street alums who do not believe in any form of financial regulation, many are concerned about what the economy will look like in near future. At the same time, the Fed has recently raised interest rates and will continue to if the economy continues to grow, an action that will at least keep the cheap money issue out of our current economy (Appelbaum).
The crash affected the entire world, but it was centered in New York City. The city, like the rest of the world, has had to adapt. Peter Madsen points out the positive effect the crash has had on the New York economy. “In the long term, the most interesting transformation has been the diversification of the NYC economy away from finance into media, fashion, and technology” (Madsen). He is also very confident in the fact that the crash will be taught in the education system for decades to come, and he is intrigued by the everyday “fighting spirit of New Yorkers.” Much like New York has found ways to diversify its economy, the country is continuing to look forward to innovation and the world of new technology to push growth further. While we look to new ideas to change the world, we must continue to educate ourselves about the many systems that govern our lives in ways we may not even be aware of.
Many people are confounded by the economic crisis of 2008 and why it happened. The lack of understanding of the economy is actually a huge reason why this crash was able to happen. Everyday people didn’t understand what they were signing, and whether or not they could realistically afford to pay back what they were borrowing. This practice went beyond the wealth of average Americans. It affected the practices of major institutions across the world. Banks did not inspect what they were buying and selling; they were just happy to make a profit, and the government didn’t catch on because it wasn’t paying attention. The complicated nature of this problem is what made it so powerful and caused an unstoppable hemorrhage in the American economy. Almost a decade later, it is imperative for everyday people to fully understand the 2008 financial crash and listen to the various perspectives about the major crisis from those involved in the financial industry. Such knowledge will allow people to interpret this dire event in history for themselves and recognize the signs of economic collapse in the future.
What Happened in the Financial Crash of 2008?
The Crash of 2008 was caused by many factors, including banks, regulators, and the stable economy. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, lowered federal interest rates to only one percent, believing that it would maintain the economic growth. This meant that anyone could borrow money and have to pay only an extra one percent interest. The Federal Reserve did this because the economy was not recovering after 9/11, even after severe interest rate cuts; so they decided to lower it even more (“Crash Course”). Low rates caused many banks to borrow a tremendous amount of money from the Federal Reserve. Investors, on the other hand, did not benefit from the low rates and looked for riskier ways to make profit. This imbalance is where the problem begins. The housing market was seen as a great opportunity for both banks and investors. Home buyers worked with mortgage brokers who then worked with mortgage lenders who then worked with banks who then worked with investment firms and hedge funds -- all of this creating a treacherous pyramid built on a shaky foundation. Low interest rates benefited everyday people too by making it easier for people to buy homes. Mortgage lenders began using many practices now called “predatory” in order to get people to borrow money to buy a home (Mathiason). At the time though, this “cheap money” was seen as a sign of the strength of the American Dream. No matter what, you could buy a house! This is a risk, however, because if you could not pay your mortgage payments (default), you lose the house to the bank. Investment bankers would then buy thousands of mortgages by borrowing millions of dollars from the Federal Reserve (remember -- everyone loves cheap money) and then package the mortgages into CDOs (collateralized debt obligation). Then they distribute tranches (parts of the CDOs) to other investors and bankers. This system turns out to very beneficial to everyone and greed kicks in. Mortgage brokers start lending subprime mortgages to very unreliable people: people with horrible credit history and unstable incomes, because the investors and bankers see this risky lending as an opportunity to make millions of dollars in profit. Even if the homeowners defaulted (couldn’t pay their mortgage and lost their home), reckless bankers didn’t care because housing prices were seemingly increasing forever. Someone else would buy their home and need a mortgage. In reality, that was not the way it worked out. Once homeowners started defaulting on their mortgages, housing prices went down because nobody was buying homes and because there were so many for sale. Just like before, each of the pieces needs to work in order for the system to be profitable. When the mortgages stopped being paid and no one was getting a new mortgage, the CDOs became worthless. No one was willing to buy them. People were basically trading nothing even though it seemed to be worth millions. Once the housing market stopped growing, and banks realized they were stuck with these packages of mortgages that were worthless and purchased with borrowed money, the economic crisis became a reality. As people began to stop paying their mortgages and banks became unable to pay their own debts, everyone looked to someone else to carry the burden. Default rates (the number of people not paying their debts) went up to eight percent, an increase that collapsed the entire American, and eventually the world, economic system (Jarvis).
The crash caused a tremendous amount of trouble in the financial system and in the lives of everyday people. “For the first two months of [2008], there was an eerie calm”(Mathiason). Firstly, Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York, who was known for prosecuting the banks, became involved in a scandal that destroyed his reputation. It was starting to become clear to the American people that some banks were struggling, but the person who had been seen as protecting people from the banks was nowhere to be found (Mathiason). Blackstone, a financial firm in New York city, revealed that it had suffered a 90% profit drop because so much of what it owned, it had bought with loaned money (Swagel). Soon many corporations and banks revealed that they were suffering. Carlyle Capital Corporation, the largest private equity firm at the time, admitted it was going to go under. For every one dollar of equity (value of what it owned), the corporation owed 32 dollars in loans. The company was worth 22 billion dollars (“Crash Course”). The government needed to react to save the American financial industry. Bear Stearns received an emergency bailout by the US Federal Reserve during the night when they admitted they were about to go under (Pressler). The US Federal Reserve issued its first bailout. 236 billion dollars was put into the US banking system. Companies didn’t want to cause alarm, so they often said everything was fine until the moment they had to come clean and share that they weren’t going to survive (Mathiason).
Different Opinions Regarding Various Aspects of Financial Crash
The economic crash of 2008 is very intricate and confusing. Because of its sophistication, there are many perspectives and opinions about the various aspects of the crash. One of the main struggles is pinpointing the direct cause. Some think it was caused by the greed of Wall Street. Some think it was the lenders who issued the subprime mortgages and/or the Federal Reserve’s lowering the interest rates. By speaking to people across the financial industry, it becomes clear that even those who understand these complex processes have different views of what happened. It would make it a lot easier if there was a clear single cause. . .
But it’s not that simple. Michael Burry, a very well known American investor who was a hedge fund manager, believes that no one took responsibility for causing the crash because they all found everyone else to blame. Instead, he believes that society should educate people on how to be more virtuous (Pressler). Noah Blitzer, who works for a private equity-firm that invests in transportation and related industries, believes that the greatest factor that allowed for the crash to happen was “was a lack of transparency, coupled with incredibly complicated financial engineering (that only very select people could fully understand) and highly misaligned incentives” (Blitzer). He argues that people were unaware of the risk involved in their actions during the time before the crash. Because the risk was being passed along in the system, nobody was afraid. Subprime mortgages were passed to investment banks and then to private investors and hedge funds, so the people in the middle didn’t care about what happened in the next trade off -- like a game of hot potato that is so complicated that no one understands the rules. Joyce Frater, who works in real estate investment firms and also worked for Morgan Stanley, explains that there was “lots of naivety” and that “there was the frenzy to produce returns that made people fail to look behind the numbers” (Frater). The financial industry was under so much pressure to make a large profit that nobody was concerned with the stability or source of the profit. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve who oversaw the crash of 2008, also thinks that the individuals are the ones to blame because that they had “bad judgement, excessive risk taking” (Bernanke & Stephanopoulos). He also admits that regulations needed to be more strictly enforced. While it is clear that many individuals weren’t paying attention and were more concerned with profit than anything else, it also seems that this may be an oversimplification of a complex issue. By making it about individuals making bad choices, Bernanke is limiting who can be blamed. While it is always nice to have a good guy and a bad guy, many disagree that this is just the result of a few individuals. Peter Madsen, a finance expert who used to work for Bear Stearns and managed 300 people exclusively in mortgage-backed securities, believes that the entire situation has been oversimplified in a way that makes Wall Street the evil cause. He views that the three major weak points -- “horrible economic management, horrible government policy, and horrible regulation” -- ignited the inconspicuous fire that would ultimately collapse the financial system in 2008. For example, there was no regulation in the Credit Default Swaps market and people were careless about what happened with the subprime mortgages. He also argues that the crash was inevitable and people priding themselves in predicting this crash are utterly condescending. Madsen believes that nobody wanted to intervene because this system “BENEFITTED EVERY ACTOR” (Madsen). In Madsen’s view, the government and lack of regulation also needed to take blame. In a system that seems to be making everyone happy, no one wants to question. Clearly, there are many opinions about what caused the crash and which major weak points had the most dramatic effects. And it is clear that the financial system is very sophisticated. As Madsen says, it is impossible to pinpoint a single villain. The US has recovered from the economic crash of 2008, but the question of whether enough has been done to prevent another crash still remains very elusive.
Reactions to Recovery
Similarly to the confusing nature of identifying the root cause of the financial crash of 2008, there is controversy over how well the crash was handled in the aftermath and what more needs to be done. One of the major movements that came about as a result of the crash is the Occupy Wall Street movement. The movement argues against economic inequality and greed and blames Wall Street for allowing this horrific crash to occur. Occupy brought attention to the massive disparity between wealthy and poor in America. The talk of the one percent came from this movement and it brought a lot of attention to the power of the wealthy. At the same time, it blamed Wall Street almost entirely for the disparity (Wood). Noah Blitzer argues that Occupy raised awareness of the issues in the financial industry, but it also allowed for an opportunity for people to “blame other people for a broad set of issues that were more systemic than just the finance industry” (Blitzer). He believes that people must look on both sides of an argument instead of coming up with their own simple and straightforward conclusions. Similarly, Peter Madsen states that this story has been “politically adapted to fit a narrative so that a single villain, Wall Street could be identified” (Madsen). He contends that it is human nature for people to take risks, but it is the responsibility of the government to limit and oversee the risks so that the country is protected. Madsen argues that greed in the financial industry comes from the possibilities allowed by insufficient regulation. While Occupy Wall Street was a powerful reaction to the crash, it also suffered from oversimplification that left out some of the critical components in the crash.
The Federal Government took great pains to pull the financial industry out of turmoil, spending 9 trillion dollars to support the industry (Swagel). In doing so, it also had to take some of the blame. While Bernanke is proud of how the Federal Reserve recovered the economy by taking appropriate actions, similarly to Madsen, Bernanke argues that there should have originally been more regulation with the subprime mortgages. He also reflects that it was “inherently unfair” to help the banks and not so much the people (Bernanke & Stephanopoulos). Americans lost their homes and jobs, but banks received enough money to ensure that CEOs still made millions of dollars in 2008 (“Crash Course”). However, Bernanke also believes that the people who are protesting and asking, “Where is my bailout?”, do not understand the situation fully in the context of what the Federal Reserve accomplished. He believes that the Fed is doing too much because nobody else is doing enough to fix the aftereffects of the crash (Bernanke & Stephanopoulos). While the Federal Government focused on the importance of growing and supporting a stable economy, it also believed that this would help everyday people. While that is true to some extent, people who were kicked out of their homes, lost their jobs, and found themselves in a place of hopelessness weren’t able to experience the benefits of a stable economy for many years.
Looking Forward
While the financial system is growing steadily, it is not an excuse to leave everything behind, forget, or ignore this symbolic moment in history. Everyone must learn from this revealing event of how a poor systematic machine can implode in the least expected and unwanted times. Blitzer explains that it is imperative to “promote more transparency, fiduciary responsibility and more closely align the interests of all parties involved” (Blitzer). There needs to be a lot more clarity in the financial industry and companies need to be held responsible for their decisions. Individuals within the industry also need to take on the responsibility of questioning the risk involved in their decisions. For Blitzer, this means that he takes more time thinking about the range of unlikely things that could happen to an investment as a result of the crash. After ten years though, it seems that 2008 has faded in American memory.
“I think some of the pain is already being forgotten. Institutional investors are already taking on more risk” (Frater). Joyce Frater is slightly apprehensive about the actions taking place in the finance industry currently. She believes that some people in the finance industry are not taking prudent actions even after the Crash. The talk of deregulation is worrying to those who remember what that helped to cause not so long ago. With President Trump’s appointment of several Wall Street alums who do not believe in any form of financial regulation, many are concerned about what the economy will look like in near future. At the same time, the Fed has recently raised interest rates and will continue to if the economy continues to grow, an action that will at least keep the cheap money issue out of our current economy (Appelbaum).
The crash affected the entire world, but it was centered in New York City. The city, like the rest of the world, has had to adapt. Peter Madsen points out the positive effect the crash has had on the New York economy. “In the long term, the most interesting transformation has been the diversification of the NYC economy away from finance into media, fashion, and technology” (Madsen). He is also very confident in the fact that the crash will be taught in the education system for decades to come, and he is intrigued by the everyday “fighting spirit of New Yorkers.” Much like New York has found ways to diversify its economy, the country is continuing to look forward to innovation and the world of new technology to push growth further. While we look to new ideas to change the world, we must continue to educate ourselves about the many systems that govern our lives in ways we may not even be aware of.
Works Cited
Appelbaum, Binyamin. "Fed Raises Interest Rates for Third Time Since Financial Crisis." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Mar. 2017. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.
Bernanke, Ben. "Full Interview: Ben Bernanke Reflects on 2008 Financial Crisis." Interview by George
Stephanopoulos. ABC News. ABC News Internet Ventures, 11 Oct. 2015. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Blitzer, Noah. "Interview With Noah Blitzer." E-mail interview. 4 Mar. 2017.
"Crash course." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 7 Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Frater, Joyce. "Interview with Joyce Frater." E-mail interview. 4 Mar. 2017.
Mathiason, Nick. "Banking Collapse of 2008: Three weeks that changed the world." The Guardian.
Guardian News and Media, 27 Dec. 2008. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Madsen, Peter. "Interview with Peter Madsen." E-mail interview. 9 Mar. 2017.
Pressler, Jessica. "Michael Burry, Real-Life Market Genius From The Big Short, Thinks Another
Financial Crisis Is Looming." Daily Intelligencer. New York Media LLC, 28 Dec. 2015. Web. 20
Mar. 2017.
Swagel, Phillip. "The Impact of the September 2008 Economic Collapse." The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Pew Financial Reform Project, 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized. Dir. Jonathan Jarvis. Vimeo. Vimeo, 8 Feb. 2009. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Wood, Jennie. "Occupy Wall Street." Infoplease. Infoplease, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.
Appelbaum, Binyamin. "Fed Raises Interest Rates for Third Time Since Financial Crisis." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Mar. 2017. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.
Bernanke, Ben. "Full Interview: Ben Bernanke Reflects on 2008 Financial Crisis." Interview by George
Stephanopoulos. ABC News. ABC News Internet Ventures, 11 Oct. 2015. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Blitzer, Noah. "Interview With Noah Blitzer." E-mail interview. 4 Mar. 2017.
"Crash course." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 7 Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Frater, Joyce. "Interview with Joyce Frater." E-mail interview. 4 Mar. 2017.
Mathiason, Nick. "Banking Collapse of 2008: Three weeks that changed the world." The Guardian.
Guardian News and Media, 27 Dec. 2008. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Madsen, Peter. "Interview with Peter Madsen." E-mail interview. 9 Mar. 2017.
Pressler, Jessica. "Michael Burry, Real-Life Market Genius From The Big Short, Thinks Another
Financial Crisis Is Looming." Daily Intelligencer. New York Media LLC, 28 Dec. 2015. Web. 20
Mar. 2017.
Swagel, Phillip. "The Impact of the September 2008 Economic Collapse." The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Pew Financial Reform Project, 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized. Dir. Jonathan Jarvis. Vimeo. Vimeo, 8 Feb. 2009. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Wood, Jennie. "Occupy Wall Street." Infoplease. Infoplease, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.