Aig and the Financial Crisis

Out of more jobs can accelerate the next decade, there be a budget deficit. AIG got

The dot-com bubble in 2000 was the start to the, still current, historically low interest rates – all thanks to the Federal Reserve. Since interest rates were so low, many Americans decided that now was the time to get the “American Dream” and buy houses, since the values were going up and mortgage and insurance rates were so low. By serially refinancing, people were quite literally treating their homes as a money bank, and not thinking twice of the equity they were loosing in the process, because they thought that the value would only go up, while their mortgages would decrease, and were blinded by the so called “American Dream”.

Because of this downfall of the housing market, the U.S. economy fell along with other markets across the country. Homeowners had mortgages higher than what their homes were valued at, the decline in housing prices caused many people to default on their mortgages which caused the values of mortgage backed securities and CDO’s to collapse, leaving banks and their financial institutions holding those securities with a lower value of

The Treasury Department purchased $40 billion in AIG preferred shares from its Capital Repurchase Plan. The Fed will purchase $52.5 billion in mortgage-backed securities. The funds are allowing AIG to retire its credit default swaps.” The case of AIG demonstrates a specific illustration of the “too big to fail” problem.

Lions, and impala, and buffalo, oh my! While on safari in Africa, novice hunter Francis Macomber embodies the cowardice within mankind, on the other hand his professional guide, Robert Wilson, represents a force of masculinity. Such character foils are especially prevalent when Macomber chooses to flee when coming face to face with a lion, while Wilson chooses to stand his ground and fight. Thus in Ernest Hemingway's “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, the notion that everybody is afraid of something, but not everybody is a coward is highlighted through the thoughts, appearance, and actions of the two main male characters.

In 2008 the world faced the worst financial crisis since the great depression. Many banks closed their doors for good that year. Among them were both small and large banks. One specific bank that collapsed that year was IndyMac, one of the largest banks in the United States. IndyMac marked the largest collapse of a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured institution since 1984, when Continental Illinois, which had $40 billion in assets, failed, according to FDIC records (“The Fall of IndyMac 2008). This paper will talk about the cause of the collapse of IndyMac in 2008, the handling of the issues, as well as the aftermath of the collapse.

The enormous amount of unsecured consumer debt created by this speculation left the stock market essentially off-balance. Many investors, caught up in the race to make a killing, invested their life savings, mortgaged their homes, and cashed in

After the optimistic forecast from the realstate that the houses value were going to increase, many institutions started to make adjustments to take profit from this trend. In some cases, prime mortgages were allowed for subprime borrowers to take. This might look like a great idea to financial institutions because the house values were rising: if a people (who in the first place couldn’t afford a house) stop paying their mortgages then the bank could sell the house for a value greater than the one at the moment of default. Everything was going well, so how is it that the crisis unfolded? Well, these institutions wanted to make more profit

The main cause of this worldwide economic contraction was the credit crunch in 2007/2008. In the United States, mortgage lenders received incentives to sell mortgages, regardless of the income and credit score of the individual receiving the loan. This lead to an influx of loans being sold that were likely to be defaulted on at a later date. These subprime mortgages proved to be very profitable for the mortgage companies; thus, in order to continue selling these mortgages, they consolidated the debt and sold it to financial intermediaries. Therefore, the loans were no longer being financed through the traditional banking model.

The new lackadaisical lending requirements and low interest rates drove housing prices higher, which only made the mortgage backed securities and CDOs seem like an even better investment. Now consider the housing market which had become a housing bubble, which had now burst, and now people could not pay for their incredibly expensive houses or keep up with their ballooning mortgage payments. Borrowers started defaulting, which put more houses back on the market for sale. But there were not any buyers. Supply was up, demand was down, and home prices started collapsing. As prices fell, some borrowers suddenly had a mortgage for way more than their home was currently worth and some stopped paying. That led to more defaults, pushing prices down further. As this was happening, the big financial institutions stopped buying sub-prime mortgages and sub-prime lenders were getting stuck with bad loans. By 2007, some big lenders had declared bankruptcy. The problems spread to the big investors, who had poured money into the mortgage backed securities and CDOs. They started losing money on their investments. All these of these financial instruments resulted in an incredibly complicated web of assets, liabilities, and risks. So that when things went bad, they went bad for the entire financial system. Some major financial players declared bankruptcy and others were forced into mergers, or needed

The problem was everyone who qualified for a mortgage already had one. Lenders knew if they sold a mortgage to a person that defaults the lender gets the house, and houses were always increasing in value in that market, that would be a valuable asset to sell. To keep up with the demand from investors, lenders started selling mortgages to borrowers who wouldn’t have qualified before because of the risk for default. These mortgages are called sub-prime mortgages and lenders started creating tons of them. In the unregulated market, lenders employed predatory tactics to get more borrowers with attractive offers such as no money down, no credit history required, even no proof of income. People never would have qualified before were now buying large houses, and the lenders sold their mortgages to Investment bankers. The investors packed subprime mortgages in with prime mortgages so credit agencies would still give a AAA rating. The rating Agencies who had a conflict of interest by receiving payments from the investment banks, had no liability if their credit ratings were correct or not. They turned a blind eye to the risky CDOs and kept giving AAA ratings. This worked for a while and everyone was happy including the new homeowners. The housing market became hyper inflated with more homeowners than ever. Wall Street continued to sell their CDO’s which were ticking time bombs. The subprime mortgages began

The housing market crash, which broke out in the United States in 2007, was caused by high risk subprime mortgages. The subprime mortgage crisis resulted in a sudden reduction in money and credit availability from banks and other lending institutions, which was referred to as a “credit crunch.” The “credit crunch” and its effect spread across the United States and further on to other countries across the world. The “credit crunch” caused a collapse in the housing markets, stock markets and major financial institutions across the globe.

Once things started to get bad, they got really bad for a lot of families who were given mortgages, who were not properly qualified. There was a major spike in defaults, with

My most treasured item is a box with a hole in it and a few extra dials, symbols, and buttons attached. The common misconception with photography is that more expensive your gear the higher quality your photographs and that’s what I believed too. However,that mindset quickly shifted after taking film IBSL; I was introduced to Adobe programs, color grading, and most importantly a visual education. Photographs told stories by looking at the world through the lens, not by the scale of the aperture managed by a dial. Soon, I focused less on those extra technical features and honed into to my “eye”. What first started out as a hobby became my newfound artistic form that provided a creative outlet for what stories I wanted to share. Photography began

In the essay “How to Be a Woman Programmer” by Ellen Ullman, published by The New York Times, the author addresses the multiple ways in which gender prejudice is alive and in the computer science industry today. While women still face discrimination, the inequality is more apparent than ever in the workplace.