GEOG 122 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Freddie Mac, United States Treasury Security, Credit Rating Agency
Document Summary
Iceland sinks : iceland"s bank accumulated bn in debt but the country"s annual gdp was only b. It only got worse in the us: fannie mae and freddie mac bite the dust: Us federal government take over fannie mae and freddie mac. Largest nationalization in the history of the world: lehman brothers. Biggest bankruptcy in human history b: aig. 18th largest corporation in us, taken over by government: bank of america buys merril lynch, october: hits continental europe. Not only banks, but countries are in debt: led to imposition of austerity measures on some countries and now contested. The housing bubble (rapid increase in price of houses) Price of housing in the us increases rapidly from the mid-1990s. Low interest rates fueled demand for mortgages and homeownership. Result of alan greenspan"s(chair, federal reserve) policy following dot. com bust. With 2000 dot. com bust, investors shifted out of stocks and into the housing market as a form of market investment.
