Sub-Prime Mortgages and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2009

The crisis of 2007–9 had the potential to become a second Great Depression but remedies learnt from the 1930s made it possible to rebuild money-bargaining chains before deep depression could set in. The crisis arose from concerns of successive presidents of the United States to extend home ownership to lower income families. Low Federal discount rates played a large part in the emergence of a house price ‘bubble’ in the United States in the early 2000s. The bubble burst in March 2007 after a period of rising discount rates. The wide acceptance of a ‘free market’ frame of reference, involving deregulation of financial markets, established conditions in which a crisis could develop. The internal financial support-bargaining of financial services companies extended the ‘bonus’ system of remuneration, giving executives incentives to undertake investments offering high returns at low risk. Regulations on leverage were relaxed. There was extensive manipulation of information in provision and packaging of sub-prime mortgages. Major financial services companies found themselves holding worthless assets when house prices fell and holders of sub-prime mortgages defaulted. Roubini and Mihm advocate the development of a new ‘crisis economics,’ but support-bargaining and money-bargaining provides a frame of reference that encompasses both crises and the calmer run of economic processes.