(855) 4-ESSAYS

Type a new keyword(s) and press Enter to search

Escaping the Great Recession


Two triggers that go hand in hand in their reputation as proximate causes of the financial crisis include the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and the housing crisis. A subprime mortgage is a mortgage that is given out to borrowers with less desirable credit ratings. Since these borrowers have lower credit ratings than the average prime mortgage borrower the lender views them at higher risk of defaulting on their loan and thus charges a higher interest rate to compensate for that risk. Subprime mortgages became more and more common causing the housing market to balloon as more and more people could afford housing. House prices were soaring as were the number of newly constructed homes. This was promising at the time as all those homes added to growth in our GDP. The various vulnerabilities that came into play are when things began to turn south. Some of these interconnected vulnerabilities include loose lending practices, excessive leveraging, and aggressive marketing of complex financial instruments that concealed risk (Bernanke 1-2). Traditionally if someone wanted to take out a mortgage on a house they would go to their local bank and apply for one. As subprime mortgages increased in popularity local banks became replaced as the place to secure a mortgage by various shadow bank institutions acting as mortgage brokers. Shadow banks act like traditional banks in the sense that they give out loans but they do so without the federal regulation traditional banks must adhere to. Due to the loose regulations imposed on these institutions, these mortgage brokers began selling as many mortgages as possible. Rather than the traditional originate to hold policy in which banks lending out the money would hold that mortgage and receive money from the borrower, the policy shifted towards originate to distribute in which the mortgages were packaged and then sold off as securities (Krugman & Wells 5).


Essays Related to Escaping the Great Recession


Got a writing question? Ask our professional writer!
Submit My Question