BUS220 Module 04: Threaded Discussion – Financial Crisis

Background

The financial crisis of 2007–2008, also known as the global financial crisis and the 2008 financial crisis, is considered by many economists to have been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It began in 2007 with a crisis in the subprime mortgage market in the United States, and developed into a full-blown international banking crisis with the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008. Excessive risk-taking by banks such as Lehman Brothers helped to magnify the financial impact globally. Massive bail-outs of financial institutions and other palliative monetary and fiscal policies were employed to prevent a possible collapse of the world financial system. The crisis was nonetheless followed by a global economic downturn, the Great Recession. The European debt crisis, a crisis in the banking system of the European countries using the euro, followed later.

In 2010, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was enacted in the US following the crisis to “promote the financial stability of the United States”. One goal of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 was to end “too big to fail.” Your task on this assignment is to write a report of one or two paragraph whether this goal is met.

The Excel Data Analysis summary statistics of the total assets of 30 largest U.S. banks for 2007 and 2013 are provided below. Five years after the peak of the financial crisis, has Washington solved the problem of banks “too big to fail”? Are the large U.S. banks larger than pre-recession level? Justify your answer using the descriptive statistics provided below.

Direction

Step 1: Write one or two paragraph to justify your answer, and then post your work to the discussion board.

Step 2: Reply to at least two classmates on their posts.