Global Financial Crisis In December 2008
Reports of economic activity On December 1, the National Bureau of Economic Research officially declared that the U.S. economy had entered recession in December 2007, a full year earlier. (See late 2000s recession) The Labor Department said that the US lost 533,000 jobs in November 2008, the biggest monthly loss since 1974. This raised the unemployment rate from 6.5% to 6.7%. On December 9, the Bank of Canada lowered its key interest rate by 0.75% to 1.5%, the lowest it had been since 1958; at the same time the Bank officially announced that Canada's economy was in recession. This move came after the news that Canada lost 70,600 jobs in the month of November, the most since 1982. The official Bank of Canada press release stated that " heoutlook for the world economy has deteriorated significantly and the global recession will be broader and deeper than previously anticipated." On December 11, the FBI announced the arrest of Bernard Madoff in a Ponzi scheme which totaled $50 bil ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Bureau Of Economic Research
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community". The NBER is well known for providing start and end dates for recessions in the United States. Many chairpersons of the Council of Economic Advisers were previously NBER Research Associates, including the former NBER president and Harvard Professor, Martin Feldstein. The NBER's president and CEO is James M. Poterba of MIT. History The NBER was founded in 1920. Its first staff economist, director of research, and one of its founders was American economist Wesley Clair Mitchell. He was succeeded by Malcolm C. Rorty in 1922. The Russian American economist Simon Kuznets, a student of Mitchell, was working at the NBER when the U.S. government recruited him to oversee the production of the first official estimates of national in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Recession
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various events, such as a financial crisis, an external trade shock, an adverse supply shock, the bursting of an economic bubble, or a large-scale Anthropogenic hazard, anthropogenic or natural disaster (e.g. a pandemic). In the United States, a recession is defined as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the market, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales." The European Union has adopted a similar definition. In the United Kingdom, a recession is defined as negative economic growth for two consecutive quarters. Governments usually respond to recessions by adopting expansionary macroeconomic policies, such as monetary policy, incr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Late 2000s Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At the time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded that it was the most severe economic and financial meltdown since the Great Depression. One result was a serious disruption of normal international relations. The causes of the Great Recession include a combination of vulnerabilities that developed in the financial system, along with a series of triggering events that began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble in 2005–2012. When housing prices fell and homeowners began to abandon their mortgages, the value of mortgage-backed securities held by investment banks declined in 2007–2008, causing several to collapse or be bailed out in September 2008. This 2007–2008 phase was called the subprime mortgage crisis. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bank Of Canada
The Bank of Canada (BoC; french: Banque du Canada) is a Crown corporation and Canada's central bank. Chartered in 1934 under the ''Bank of Canada Act'', it is responsible for formulating Canada's monetary policy,OECD. OECD Economic Surveys: Canada 2000'. OECD Publishing; 30 August 2000. . p. 45–. and for the promotion of a safe and sound financial system within Canada.Financial Stability and Central Banks: A Global Perspective'. Routledge; November 2002. . p. 41–. The Bank of Canada is the sole issuing authority of Canadian banknotes,Gene Swimmer. How Ottawa Spends, 1996-97: Life Under the Knife'. MQUP; 15 May 1996. . p. 379–. provides banking services and money management for the government, and loans money to Canadian financial institutions. The contract to produce the banknotes has been held by the Canadian Bank Note Company since 1935. The Bank of Canada headquarters are located at the Bank of Canada Building, 234 Wellington Street in Ottawa, Ontario. The building als ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bernard Madoff
Bernard Lawrence Madoff ( ; April 29, 1938April 14, 2021) was an American fraudster and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. He advanced the proliferation of electronic trading platforms and the concept of payment for order flow, which has been described as a "legal kickback." Madoff founded a penny stock brokerage in 1960, which eventually grew into Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. He served as the company's chairman until his arrest on December 11, 2008. That year, the firm was the 6th-largest market maker in S&P 500 stocks. At the firm, he employed his brother Peter Madoff as senior managing director and chief compliance officer, Peter's daughter Shana Madoff as the firm's rules and compliance officer and attorney, and his now deceased sons Mark Madoff and Andrew Madoff. Peter was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012, and Mark hange ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ponzi Scheme
A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own. Some of the first recorded incidents to meet the modern definition of the Ponzi scheme were carried out from 1869 to 1872 by Adele Spitzeder in Germany and by Sarah Howe in the United States in the 1880s through the "Ladies' Deposit". Howe offered a solely female clientele an 8% monthly interest rate and then stole the money that the women ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity indexes. Many professionals consider it to be an inadequate representation of the overall U.S. stock market compared to a broader market index such as the S&P 500. The DJIA includes only 30 large companies. It is price-weighted, unlike stock indices which use market capitalization. Furthermore, the DJIA does not use a weighted arithmetic mean. The value of the index can also be calculated as the sum of the stock prices of the companies included in the index, divided by a factor which is currently () approximately 0.152. The factor is changed whenever a constituent company undergoes a stock split so that the value of the index is unaffected by the stock split. First calculated on May 26, 1896, the index is the second-oldest among U.S. market ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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General Accounting Office
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal government of the United States. It identifies its core "mission values" as: accountability, integrity, and reliability. It is also known as the "congressional watchdog". Powers of GAO The work of the GAO is done at the request of congressional committees or subcommittees or is mandated by public laws or committee reports. It also undertakes research under the authority of the Comptroller General. It supports congressional oversight by: * auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively; * investigating allegations of illegal and improper activities; * reporting on how well government programs and policies are meeting their objectives; * performing policy analyses and outlining options for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oversight Of The Troubled Assets Relief Program
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act created the Troubled Asset Relief Program to administer up to $700 billion. Several oversight mechanisms are established by the bill, including the Congressional Oversight Panel, the Special Inspector General for TARP (SIGTARP), the Financial Stability Oversight Board, and additional requirements for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Financial Stability Oversight Board (FSOB) The Financial Stability Oversight Board was created to review and make recommendations regarding the Treasury's actions. Its purpose is to review the operation of TARP, to make recommendations to the Treasury for improvements, and to watch for fraud and misrepresentation. The FSOB also has the power to ensure that the Treasury follows policies in accordance with the Act and the economic interest of the U.S. It is to meet on a monthly basis and report to Congress and the Oversight Panel quarterly. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Global Financial Crisis In September 2008
:''This article only provides a detailed description of the financial market events of September 2008. For the background information, causes, effects and policy responses see Financial crisis of 2007–08. For a timeline see Subprime crisis impact timeline.'' Prelude The subprime mortgage crisis reached a critical stage during the first week of September 2008, characterized by severely contracted Market liquidity, liquidity in the global credit markets and insolvency threats to investment banks and other institutions. US government takeover of home mortgage lenders The United States director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), James B. Lockhart III, on September 7, 2008, announced his decision to place two United States Government-owned corporation, government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), into conservatorship run by FHFA. United States Treasury Secretary Henry P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Global Financial Crisis In October 2008
Beginning of October The policy response to the subprime crisis started in earnest after Lehman's failure in mid September 2008, accelerated after February 2009, and had become very large by September 2009. Governments have relied on a portfolio of intervention tools, but the biggest commitments and outlays have been in the form of debt and asset guarantees, while purchases of bad assets have been very limited. Announcements directed at the banking system as a whole (general) and at specific banks (specific) were priced by the markets. General announcements tend to be associated with positive returns and specific announcements with negative ones. Moreover, general announcements exert cross-country spillovers but are perceived by the home-country banks as subsidies boosting the competitive advantage of foreign banks. Specific announcements exert spillovers on other banks. The United States Senate's version of the $700 billion bailout plan, HR1424, modified to expand bank deposit gua ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Global Financial Crisis In November 2008
Week of November 2 Reports of economic activity October sales of cars and light trucks in the United States fell precipitously in 2008 when compared with sales in October 2007, with General Motors falling 45%, Ford falling 30%, Chrysler falling 35%, Toyota falling 23%, Honda falling 25%, and Nissan falling 33%. Much of the falloff in sales was attributable to customers being unable to arrange financing. Except for Wal-Mart, which posted a slight gain, retail sales were off during October 2008 as compared with October 2007 in the United States with some moderate priced stores reporting double digit decreases. October retail sales were down 4.1% from October 2007 and down 2.8% from September 2008 with sales of cars and auto parts leading the way with a 23.4% decline from October 2007, and a 31.9% decline from September 2008. Employment reports released by the Labor Department on Friday, November 7, showed that about 500,000 jobs were lost in the United States during September and Oc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |