The Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve’s Response to the Financial Crisis
Emily Gibson
ECON 315
Money, Banking, and Monetary Economics
Fall 2012
The Beginnings of the United States Financial Crisis The world financial crisis began in 2006 in the United States housing and related mortgage markets. Soon it spread to the entire U.S. economy and then to the rest of the world. In August 2007, the turmoil moved from the securitized U.S. mortgage markets to the interbank lending market, causing it to freeze up. Before long people became concerned about the extent and distribution of the mortgage related losses, market participants lost confidence in one another’s credit-worthiness, and the market that provides U.S. banks and other financial institutions with their liquidity became illiquid as a result. Institutions such as large commercial banks, investment houses, and insurance companies are the base of the U.S. financial system and because of the crisis they lost the ability to borrow short-term from one another. The general macro economy had weakened causing debt deflation, falling asset prices, falling real estate prices, and falling commodity prices; feeding one another into a downward spiral. Finally in September 2008, the breakdown of the international banking system based on the dominance of the major U.S. investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies amplified the turmoil, sending severe shocks through the world economy. The economic crash international in its reach was characterized by falling employment, income, and output across the globe. The entire U.S. banking and financial system collapsed as a social financial system similar to banking crisis of 1931. From this point forward, what at first appeared as a U.S. “subprime mortgage market crisis” revealed itself to be a world economic crisis of major proportions. The global economic crisis had originated in the U.S. least in the sense that the
Emily Gibson
ECON 315
Money, Banking, and Monetary Economics
Fall 2012
The Beginnings of the United States Financial Crisis The world financial crisis began in 2006 in the United States housing and related mortgage markets. Soon it spread to the entire U.S. economy and then to the rest of the world. In August 2007, the turmoil moved from the securitized U.S. mortgage markets to the interbank lending market, causing it to freeze up. Before long people became concerned about the extent and distribution of the mortgage related losses, market participants lost confidence in one another’s credit-worthiness, and the market that provides U.S. banks and other financial institutions with their liquidity became illiquid as a result. Institutions such as large commercial banks, investment houses, and insurance companies are the base of the U.S. financial system and because of the crisis they lost the ability to borrow short-term from one another. The general macro economy had weakened causing debt deflation, falling asset prices, falling real estate prices, and falling commodity prices; feeding one another into a downward spiral. Finally in September 2008, the breakdown of the international banking system based on the dominance of the major U.S. investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies amplified the turmoil, sending severe shocks through the world economy. The economic crash international in its reach was characterized by falling employment, income, and output across the globe. The entire U.S. banking and financial system collapsed as a social financial system similar to banking crisis of 1931. From this point forward, what at first appeared as a U.S. “subprime mortgage market crisis” revealed itself to be a world economic crisis of major proportions. The global economic crisis had originated in the U.S. least in the sense that the