Talk:2007–2008 financial crisis/Archive 3

Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Old requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: procedurally closed. An RM is already open above, please wait for an admin to close it. Jenks24 (talk) 08:20, 13 August 2012 (UTC)



2007–2012 global financial crisisGlobal financial crisis of 2008 –}} Clear consensus to move above (Talk:2007–2012_global_financial_crisis#Four-way_RfC_summary_table. Perhaps more importantly, there is no information in the article or reliable sources that say anything about a financial crisis after 2009 (and very little in 2009). Smallbones (talk) 15:59, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

We already have that template at the head of the previous section, and a new one isn't going to get any attention until it gets old. The previous RM is stuck in Wikipedia:Requested moves#Backlog limbo, where it might rot away for some time. The thing to do, I think, is to ask some admin to close the RM on his or her talk page. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 16:49, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
I posted a question in the Teahouse project. →Yaniv256 talk contribs
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move (pick a number)

I've removed another requested move. It simply looked quite WP:Pointy and wouldn't move things along. If we want to do another one, I'll suggest waiting a few days and then just do one consensus choice against the current title. BTW, I've appealed to User:RegentsPark's common sense on his user page. Overriding a 10-2 consensus just doesn't make sense. So hold off please Smallbones (talk) 20:06, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

As I said, I'm requesting RegentsPark to reconsider, or just to pass it to somebody else for a second opinion. Obviously, going against a 10-2 consensus, he should see good reasons to comply with the request. If he doesn't the choice will be between a move review and a simplified move request - which I assume we could again get a 10-2 consensus within a few days. The real question is which is the surer route. I'd guess the second - it would be impossible for admins to ignore two 10-2 consensuses. I think the aborted move request was too complex and would definitely be viewed as pointy, as in (pick a number) Smallbones (talk) 21:14, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
I accept Smallbones argument and thank him for preventing me from taking us down the wrong path. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 22:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Lead chart

    • side note: Smallbones, in my opinion this chart needs to be high resolution, the text needs to go to a caption and it should replace the one in the lead. What is the deal with the current lead picture? Three indicators? What is this, the AER? →Yaniv256 talk contribs 15:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
In fact, we should do a MOS for economic charts that clearly states that unless there is a very good reason to do otherwise, there should be only one indicator per chart. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 15:38, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
(EC) Actually, I only want to use this graph here - to show it is official. There are 2 other graphs that show the same thing. Current lead graph shows the levels as well as the difference (which is the most important), so it looks quite crowded. I'll suggest changes to the other 2 graphs if we want a better looking graph (in our available space). Smallbones (talk) 15:43, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


Come on, I know what a TED spread is. I just think that showing the raw data on the lead picture is a bit much for the uninitiated. Not that I think so much of the Libor to begin with. My first choice would be to go for some US banking default swap index. One that is highly traded and has a deep market. Should be easy to fetch for anyone with a Bloomberg on his desk. I would ask for a global banking default swap index, but I don't know if there is one with a deep market. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 17:04, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

If anyone has the raw data and can paste it in my sandbox I can do the chart in Octave or R. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 17:09, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Definition of a Financial crisis

As I said above there is broad agreement about what a financial crisis is. It's about financial institutions and the financial system. It is not about the economy in general, though it is commonly thought that financial crises precipitate economic crises. Just a few definitions grabbed from the first books coming up on Google Books:

  • "A financial crisis is a disturbance to financial markets, associated typically with falling asset prices and insolvency among debtors and intermediaties which ramifies through the financial system" [1]
  • "episodes of breakdown in financial trade" [2]
  • "During a financial crisis, people, as a whole, begin losing faith in the financial system .... Banking panics and bank runs occur as people lose faith in the banking and financial system." [3]

Pretty standard stuff. Shall we all agree on the standard definition or have folks just makes stuff up as they go along? Smallbones (talk) 03:10, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

The elements of the definition you cite seem to be present throughout the period 2007 to 2012; although the center of activity is now sovereign debt of countries in the Eurozone; although banks remain involved, as they hold this debt. User:Fred Bauder Talk 03:53, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
True but is this the same crisis, a consequence of the original crisis, a new crisis, or what? American banks are no longer in crisis--at least at this moment. For Europe there are good arguments for considering this as a continuation of the original crisis. Take Spain, for example. Its government didn't over spend (like Greece) but it bailed out its banks (bad real estate lending like the USA); its banks in turn bought government debt; the ECB lent to the banks, etc. There's a good argument that this is a continuation of the crisis but also that this a crisis created by the measures taken to deal with the original crisis. One can go either way. One can say Spain created a sovereign debt crisis to deal with the banks' bad loan portfolio. Or one can say the crisis continues into a new phase. I see the experts talk both ways.
We can do either. As others argued, the article mostly focuses on the crisis that reached a climax in 2008. We could have written an article that weighs each period equally and have sub-articles that focus on each phase. In that case, the bulk of the current article would be moved to an article called (perhaps) "the banking crisis of 2008". While the current article would be called the "economic crisis of 2008 - 2012" (some might like to call it "the global crisis in capitalism"). It would then consist of banking crisis, recession, monetary policy, government stimulus, government debt build-up, currency crisis, more banking problems, etc. And each would have their own articles to expand as appropriate.
It appears the the editors are arguing that this article has and should focus on the original financial/banking crisis. Do I understand the consensus correctly? Jason from nyc (talk) 12:26, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, at least as I understand it.→Yaniv256 talk contribs 12:54, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
The crisis has causes which predate its first generally observable manifestation in August, 2007 as a a liquidity crisis. It has consequences, including derivative financial crises which follow the active phase of bankruptcies and market collapses which occurred in the fall of 2008. We could have an article which covers only that extremely active phase in 2008, provided that is not used to replace the long term unfolding of the crisis over the years, as in 2008–2012 global recession. Although I am of the opinion that this is a classic crisis of capitalism, I don't think that approach is productive other than as a brief section in larger articles. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:37, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
Jason summarizes the options very well, and his conclusion is correct that people want to focus on the financial part of the financial crisis, as all the "related stuff" is covered in other articles. Clearly all the other articles Jason says could be created to cover this related stuff, have been created. Thanks to Fred for realizing that a focused article is needed. As far as the "Classic Crisis of Capitalism," I'll just say that it is not among the top few explanations of this event, but if Fred want to include a sentence and a reference, it is fine with me. Smallbones (talk) 15:53, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

RM on hold

 

Based on some of the discussion above and on my talk page, I've temporarily changed the status of the RM on hold. I'd appreciate it if you could (very briefly!) summarize your arguments for your preferred title or against the current title (the status quo) below. Please skip the economics (let's leave that to academia!) and, instead, point to sources, Wikipedia policy, and the scope of the article. --regentspark (comment) 14:05, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

  • Global financial crisis of 2008 although Global financial crisis of 2007-2009 would also be acceptable. The only policy/guideline issues here are WP:RS and WP:OR - those who want the title to go thru 2012 have no RS and are simply doing OR. There are no sources in the article that extend the crisis beyond 2009. The graph to the right, from the official US Commission on the Financial Crisis, is used by them to define the extent of the crisis. You can see that the "real crisis" or the "height of the crisis" (or just "when the shit hit the fan") is in August-October 2008, but there is a runup starting in 2007 and a tail going into 2009. So the exact wording is just a judgement call, either is fine with me. BTW, we have two(!) version of this graph in the article, but this can be called the official one. Smallbones (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
I've moved the "side note" to the "lead chart" section (directly below), for clarity in this section. I'll contact everybody who participated in the table above, so hopefully we can take care of the move with some reasonable speed. Smallbones (talk) 14:54, 18 August 2012 (UTC).
Of course, anybody else can participate in this as well, per normal practice. Smallbones (talk) 15:13, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Global financial crisis of 2008, although Global financial crisis of 2007-2009 is good too. For me, all that matters is that we use one of the common names, so the Google Scholar evidence I cited on RegentsPark's talk page is all that matters. It is not for us to determine when the crisis started and when and if it is done, nor is it of any particular interest, as such calls are bound to be somewhat arbitrary by nature. The way I see it, everyone's position is known. All that is needed is for Fred to present his sources, and we should be done. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 15:20, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Global financial crisis starting in 2007: I think there's no consensus on when the global crisis ended, but that "Global financial crisis of 2008" might be mistaken for a crisis that spans Jan. 2008 to Dec. 2008. My intermediate Macro text, which doesn't say there wasn't a global crisis, refers to "a U.S. crisis that started in 2007" and also names it the U.S. Financial Crisis of 2007-2009. (Macroeconomics and the financial system" Mankiw, N.G. and L.M. Ball. 2010.) Fleetham (talk) 17:22, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Qualified support - That misinterpretation of Global financial crisis of 2008 would be put to right in the first sentence of the article. I don't think many people read just the title and move on. Still, we have to converge to one name that has good references. U.S. Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 is a great an OK name as Mankiw is a valid authority. Global financial crisis (starting 2007) is good too if we put the parenthesis there to distinguish the common name part (Global finacial crisis) from the disambiguation part that comes afterwards. We have many good choices, as there are many common names floating around. Any one of them would do just fine. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 17:45, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
I think RegentsPark wants simple citations. New Palgrave as an article entitled "Credit Crunch Chronology: April 2007–September 2009." Apparently my University's access to New Palgrave expired, so I can't read the article to see how they're dating it, but this supports the 2007 to 2009 dating. MIT Sloan has a business case on the "Global Financial Crisis of 2008" [4]. Jeffrey Frankel refers to "The 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis".[5]. You can find a few references to 2007-2012 crisis, but mostly indirect and not as strong. It looked like there was a consensus that this article does and should cover the subprime crisis and subsequent bank failures (which have lasting effects, but the financial crisis is over) while the ongoing Euro financial crisis is a related but distinct event.--Bkwillwm (talk) 18:10, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
Palgrave opens with

The global financial crisis that began in mid-2007 and exploded in the fall of 2008 shocked most economists.

suggesting a bit more support to Global financial crisis (starting 2007) than to Global financial crisis of 2008, but just on the margin, I would say. Note to RegentsPark, Palgrave is the economist's Britannica, a deeply trusted tertiary source.→Yaniv256 talk contribs 18:23, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
  • [Global] financial crisis of 2008, or [Global] financial crisis of 2007-2009 with or without Global. I agree with most of the above but let me suggest that we read the article’s leading paragraphs. It basically describes the crisis from ’07 to ’09. Paragraph #1 describes the various facets of the crisis circa '08 (collapse of financial institutions, bailout of banks, drop in stock markets, etc.) Paragraph #2 says it ended in ’09. Paragraph #1 and #5 says the financial breakdown lead to economic pain that continues. If the lead is correct and is supported by the references, the financial crisis is from ’07 to ’09 and is the cause of other things that followed (recession, sovereign debt, etc). Jason from nyc (talk) 01:37, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Global financial crisis of 2008 or Global financial crisis of 2007-2009 Generally agree with the rest of the people here. It is a mistake to lump all the current 'troubles' into this article. The term 'financial crisis' has a standard meaning in the field of finance. By the standard definition, and according to reliable sources, the financial crisis that started in 2008 ended sometime in early 2009. The European sovereign-debt crisis is another topic altogether. LK (talk) 03:09, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment

Thanks everyone for succinctly summarizing your positions above. The discussion is definitely more focused than much of the discussion in the various move requests, particularly without the gdp and other graphs attempting to prove when the crisis started or ended. Unfortunately, we'll never really know whether all this would have resulted in a change my close or not. Recent comments on my talk page and on ANI reveal that my attempt to cut short the normal move process and come to a speedier conclusion have been misinterpreted variously as admin malfeasance, as being reflective of some inherent conflict of interest or, and I must admit that the logic here escapes me completely, some sort of ownership issues. I therefore think it is best to return to the move process as it is designed and I intend closing the move as I originally did with the reasoning that reflects my thinking at that time. Going forward, your choices are: (1) request a move review (WP:RM/R) if you believe that the close was not reasonable or "inconsistent with the spirit and intent of Wikipedia common practice, policies, or guidelines"; (2) reopen the debate with some alternative title (if you do this, I suggest you pay heed to the criteria set down at WP:AT, particularly recognizability and common name, and be mindful of WP:OR); or (3) do nothing and edit one of the many other pages that need your attention - particularly if you happen to be good at counting :). In my opinion, if you focus your arguments on the criteria set down in WP:AT rather than trying to prove when the crisis started or ended, it will be easier to find an appropriate title. I apologize for all this, particularly to smallbones (on whose very reasonable request I reopened the discussion), but, as I say above, I assure you that my intentions were entirely benign. Regards. --regentspark (comment) 14:28, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Disgusting. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 16:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Title

Excuse me, but why is this not titled 2008 financial crisis like it has been and should be? The financial crisis is over, whether there is a recession now is irrelevant to the events of 2008 specifically. No, not 2007, no not 2012. Someone should take charge to reverting the title and getting some of the crap monikers of "Great recession" - no one has used that word but the President himself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.205.81.131 (talk) 00:05, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I think the current title should stand as it is. Even during the Great Depression, there were times when many thought they were "out of it" or "heading out of it". The Obama Whitehouse would like everyone to believe we are out of it, for their own political purposes. But, while there have been many "ups", nowhere near all the "downs" have been fixed; nor does it appear that further major "downs" will not continue, and probably grow significantly. Diligentdave (talk) 22:41, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Which would seem to indicate that the veracity of the article's content should be called into question; as it appears from the very title itself that its content is being tampered with under a political motivation. If I recall correctly this article was originally titled something like "2007-2008 economic crisis" or such. It is, as of this year - an election year now renamed in a manner indicating that the crisis has not abated. As a reader, I would, knowing that, question the integrity of its content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.209.144.90 (talk) 18:24, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Move until consensus reached

The result of a move review was that no consensus was reached on a new title (Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2012 August 19). Several editors pointed out that according to WP:Retain, when no consensus is reached on a title, the page should title should be the first non-stub version of the article. As another user put the policy: “When no [page name] has been established [as the default] and discussion cannot resolve the issue, the [page name] used in the first non-stub revision is considered the default”.

The discussion indicated that this article should be moved to Financial crisis of 2007-2008, since this was the first non-stub version. This article should be moved there immediately until consensus is reached on an alternative title. I'll request a move to the this title soon (if someone with move powers on this article feels bold, they should go ahead and make the change), unless serious objections to this interpretation of policy are raised.--Bkwillwm (talk) 06:34, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Listing move request to temporary title:

2008 to 2012

"Widespread Weakness". Read the related article also, "For Europe’s Economy, a Lost Decade Looms". User:Fred Bauder Talk 20:40, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Good stuff but is it clearly related? The article has a gratuitous reference to the ’08 financial crisis, i.e. “before the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States spread across the Atlantic.” However, our own "List of writedowns due to subprime crisis" shows the European losses occurred outside the Eurozone (Switzerland, UK) or in Eurozone nations that according the this Times article have recovered (Germany and France). This raises the question whether the ’08 crisis has anything to do with the nations dragging down the EU (i.e. the PIGS). Indeed, buried deep in the article is the statement “Europe typically tracks the U.S. economy with a slight time delay, but now seems to have decoupled.” This may be an argument for seeing the European sovereign debt crisis as a different crisis. In any case, a good article. Jason from nyc (talk) 22:00, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
I think the linkages are through the collapse of the property market in Spain and the subsequent banking crisis and through banks and hedge funds holding Greek debt. User:Fred Bauder Talk 02:35, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
The rather long article is about the economy in general, not the 2008 financial crisis. Besides the gratuitous reference noted above, there is another reference "Europe, stricken by a self-inflicted debt crisis that began in 2010," that clearly says this is not part of the 2008 crisis. Another sort-of-reference at the end of the article “In the euro area, the main uncertainty is over if and how the current debt crisis can be resolved and whether a breakup of the euro can be avoided,” suggests it is not part of the 2008 crisis, but isn't at all clear. That's all there is about financial crises. So all-in-all I conclude that this article, doesn't say anything about a linkage to 2008, or says that it is NOT linked. Smallbones (talk) 04:01, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
The graph is what is telling. User:Fred Bauder Talk 09:52, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
Here is some language: "Since June 2009, when major developed economies hit bottom after the credit crisis, Germany has seen the largest increase in gross domestic product." http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/17/business/Measuring-Recoveries.html User:Fred Bauder Talk 10:15, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
You're totally missing it Fred. The graphs are about GNP - the general economic situation - and NOT about a financial crisis. Smallbones (talk) 12:35, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
GNP charts don't necessarily have anything to do with a financial crisis. The world economy is clearly still running below trend, but the discrete financial crisis (subprime and bank failures) is over while a second one (European sovereign debt) has cropped up. Secondary literature, that's been mentioned, sees these as discrete, but related events.--Bkwillwm (talk) 21:01, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
I would treat them as a single global, or, at least, North Atlantic, event. User:Fred Bauder Talk 21:33, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
But reliable sources generally do not treat those as a single global event. If you disagree, that is your prerogative, but sooner or later this article should reflect what sources say rather than what you say. bobrayner (talk) 22:37, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

"3. Since we last met, the global recovery has continued to face a number of challenges. Financial market tensions are high. External, fiscal and financial imbalances are still prevalent, having a major impact on growth and employment prospects and confidence. Clearly, the global economy remains vulnerable, with a negative impact on the everyday lives of people all over the world, affecting jobs, trade, development, and the environment." G20 Leaders Declaration, Los Cabos, Mexico, June 19, 2012 User:Fred Bauder Talk 18:44, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

A cherrypicked phrase from one source which talks about "global recovery" is hardly proof of a "global financial crisis" over that 5-year period. You do realise this, yes? Or are you arguing that the presence of "imbalances" actually constitutes a crisis? (In which case we've been in a crisis since records began). Sooner or later the article will have to be changed in line with what reliable sources say. bobrayner (talk) 19:04, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
The G20 will continue to address the crisis, regardless of the title of a Wikipedia article. User:Fred Bauder Talk 01:13, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Is the G20 relevant to the name of this article in some way? (ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝuʎɐɹqoq 10:24, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
In 2012 the G20 continues to address the ongoing crisis. User:Fred Bauder Talk 01:34, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
I have tried to decipher your reply but cannot see how it justifies the "global". Is there any good reason - I mean a good reason, not irrelevant segues - to continue calling this article "2007–2012 global financial crisis"? (ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝuʎɐɹqoq 11:12, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move to Financial crisis of 2007–2008. Consensus on moving page to Financial crisis of 2007–2008 as a first step; further discussion needed on creating a more comprehensive article dealing with the situation till 2012, or including that part by a further renaming of this article. Non-admin closure by uninvolved editor. Churn and change (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC) Churn and change (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)



2007–2012 global financial crisisFinancial crisis of 2007-2008 –--Bkwillwm (talk) 22:05, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose malformed proposal with hyphen where en dash is required. Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: Since the title disagrees with what sources say, we should change it; this move would be a good step. I'm happy to use some other punctuation mark if that satisfies Dicklyon. (ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝuʎɐɹqoq 11:10, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - of course, this agrees with the general consensus, (as expressed in the last 2 RfC's) and should satisfy everybody who wants to strictly follow all the rules. It should be done immediately. I will note that every name change on this article had a lot of unseemly pushing and shoving and sharp elbows being thrown, and that there has never been a real consensus to change the title, until recently when a general consensus has attempted to correct previous mistakes, and make the title consistent with policy and the content of the article. Of course this change has to be made! Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:20, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Support (with correct punctuation) It's good process. Jojalozzo 22:36, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: endash should be used. Otherwise neutral. HandsomeFella (talk) 13:09, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The hyphen-endash question is trivial and uncontrovesial and should be applied as such, if this requested move goes ahead. Just one question though: is there anything absurd in saying the crisis ended in 2008? As in the crisis phase ended, and subsequent parts of the story are the "consequences"? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:16, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
    • I agree that the en dash can be fixed as a trivial change. Regarding the exact dating of the crisis, the point of this move discussion is just to recognize that there hasn't been a consensus title established yet, so we should follow WP:Retain and move to the title of the last non-stub version of this article. Discussion of the best title should be part of a separate proposal.--Bkwillwm (talk) 02:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Sure. From my reading, there is nothing particularly wrong with the original title, except for a hyphen-dash, and it is certainly less criticised than the current title. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Compromise? -Let me get this straight: the vast majority of this article discusses the early crisis (2007-2008/2009). However, huge financial problems are still on-going (US debt, Euro Crisis). The global financial crisis, a very popular term used in the media, is still on-going. However, this article does not discuss current financial problems. I will only support this move if a new page was created, titled 2007-2012 global financial crisis or something, and this new "main" article will include and provide an overview of global financial problems from 2007 to present (including its multiple dimensions: housing bubble, early crisis, recession, euro crisis, US debt, etc.). Currently, I don't think WP has such an article. If this article does get renamed (Financial crisis of 2007-2008), it can be one of the auxiliary articles that goes into more detail regarding the early crisis. The other auxiliary articles can include the European sovereign-debt crisis, Great Recession, etc. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 21:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Your comment isn't related to this move request. The request is based on the fact that there is no consensus supporting the current title, so the title should be changed back to the last title of a non-stub version of this article. We can establish a consensus for a new, permanent title later. That said, I definitely support the idea of a comprehensive article that serves as a jumping off point to the recession and crisis articles based on post 2007 events. The current set up seems to tempt people to conflate recessions with financial crises, and distinct crises with each other. I'm not sure what the title for such an article would be.--Bkwillwm (talk) 01:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Oh I see. Okay, I'll support this move for now. But we must discuss creating a new main comprehensive article. I'd like to name the new article 2007-2012 global financial crisis, because it's a rather comprehensive title, and this article will no longer be using it. If we can agree on creating this new "main" article, I promise to help out as much as possible.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:50, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was procedural close. --BDD (talk) 16:59, 10 October 2012 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

Financial crisis of 2007-2008Financial crisis of 2007–2008

  • In the recent RM that caused it be moved, most responders noted that the intended and correct punctuation is the en dash, and made their support contingent on that, but the closer used the hyphen, which is wrong. Now the article is locked, for reasons I haven't looked into, but this technical error should be fixed in any case. Dicklyon (talk) 00:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
The closer used –, the en-dash, not the hyphen. The request I put in for the move at WP:RM also had –. I am not sure what we finally wound up with, since I couldn't do the move (for the same reason you can't now), and so had to get somebody else to do it. If it is wrong (didn't check), you can ask for a technical move at WP:RM; my closing comments clearly have the en-dash and so did my move request, and you can link to that in the request. Churn and change (talk) 05:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Better? --regentspark (comment) 13:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks :) -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Yup, thanks. I updated the move log at the top, and I think all the technical steps are now done. Churn and change (talk) 14:50, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Global or US

What is the intended scope of this article? It used to have "global" in the title but that seems to have been removed when people decided to change a dash to a hyphen (or vice versa, whatever) because ...?

Anyway, if it's about the global crisis, then some very US specific text needs to be removed (for example, on the advantages of a weaker dollar, since while that may help US (though even that is doubtful), it would hurt other countries). Volunteer Marek  00:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

There is significant content regarding global effects. However, I agree that the article focuses primarily on the U.S. Rather than deleting content, I suggest we add more content from a global perspective. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:38, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, the stuff about the benefits of the weak dollar should at least be removed from the lede and it should at least be explained that while this might benefit US it might acerbate the recession in other countries. Volunteer Marek  02:01, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Ummm... I see refs in the lede about about weakening the dollar, but strangely no content concerning it. ??? -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:14, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
The current type of contraction requires balance sheet repair via currency depreciation and export-driven growth. Fiscal stimulus extends a current account deficit and retards export growth' - overly US specific and obviously a depreciation of a currency for one economy is an appreciation for the other. Volunteer Marek  02:27, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't know. Removing that part might violate neutrality. The opening the paragraphs says "both market-based and regulatory solutions". We could, I suppose remove that whole paragraph. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Why would it affect neutrality? Volunteer Marek  02:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, Krugman is Keynesian and Vernon L. Smith is new classical. Removing the new classical views seems unbalanced. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 03:14, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Requested move: Recession of 2007–2009

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I, the OP, am withdrawing this proposal, and opened a new proposal on Talk:2008–2012 global recession#new proposal to move that article instead of this one.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 15:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


Financial crisis of 2007–2008Recession of 2007–2009 – Per WP:commonname. Independent research organizations and news sources call the events a recession that began on Dec 2007 and ended on June 2009. Here's the evidence: [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. I can list many more.

Also, after the title change, I suggest we merge content from 2008–2012 global recession to here, because the two are essentially part of the same thing, and having separate articles is not only unnecessary, but forking.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 18:55, 9 November 2012 (UTC) (Nevermind about the merge, we can discuss that later)-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


The problem: There is not a single comprehensive article about the recession that occurred in the U.S. from 2007 to 2009. The current 2008–2012 global recession covers the global effects of the recession, while this Financial crisis of 2007–2008 article covers the financial crisis aspect of the recession that lasted from 2007 to 2008. We could make a new article, but I think the best solution in this case is to add some content to this article to make this an article for the "Recession of 2007–2009". -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


Survey

  • Support name change per usage in sources. I do not think the title suits a merge from 2008–2012 global recession - I would merge them the other way, into 2008–2012 global recession. Jojalozzo 21:44, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
  • There was a recession in the United States that lasted from 2007 to 2009. The global financial crisis that began in 2007 is not over in the United States or elsewhere. Titles should reflect those facts. User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:35, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
There's already an article for that. It's called 2007–2012 global economic crisis. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 23:12, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Which however is false title as there is no global recession over that period but financial crisis instead.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:36, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - A financial crisis and a recession just aren't the same things. A financial crisis has to do with a failing banking system. A recession is about the economy as a whole. While one may lead to the other (or perhaps not), they are unlikely to happen at exactly the same time. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:45, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support the title change but oppose the merge. Regarding the dating of the financial crisis, 2007-2009 seems like the best dates since they are the dates most often used when the financial crisis is broadly dated. "2008 financial crisis" is often frequently used. The authoritative New Palgrave dates the crisis from 2007-2009 [11] (calling it the "Credit crunch," which might be an alternative for the "financial crisis" article). Financial crises and recessions are different. We can and should discuss the financial crisis (CDOs, bank failures, equity market crashes, bailouts, Fed purchasing of toxic assets...) and the recession (unemployment, auto bailout, stimulus, QE...). Yes, the financial crisis caused the recession, but these are conceptually distinct things, and there is more than enough material for each to have its own article. I don't know why some editors want to conflate the two. Please explain, because I haven't heard a good argument.--Bkwillwm (talk) 01:48, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Update I struck out my support. I was only looking at the date change. I somehow missed the change from "financial crisis" to "recession." The date change makes sense, but the rest of the change doesn't.--Bkwillwm (talk) 22:56, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support the title change as more accurate to the sources reporting the crisis. Oppose the merge as the articles cover different topics. LK (talk) 04:25, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Recession is not the same as financial crisis, even if one did the cause the other. This article primarily covers the financial crisis, very little on the actual recession (one small paragraph). It'd be comparable to renaming the Great Depression article "Wall Street Crash" (or rather, vice-versa). Walrasiad (talk) 15:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

The recession technically ended in the US in 2009, not sure about the rest of the world. The current 2008–2012 global recession article seems to be primarily about the US. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 21:50, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok. The merge would be fine with me as long as only US related content is merged from 2008–2012 global recession. Jojalozzo 23:12, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

As for the issues regarding the difference between financial crisis and recession, we go by what sources say. All the sources I have cited referred to the 2007–2009 events as "recession". Smallbone's interpretation seems like WP:OR to me. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:06, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Both the recession and the financial crisis are often dated 2007-2009, but that doesn't make them the same thing. If you look at it in more detail, sources (like New Palgrave) that say the financial crisis started in 2007 are refering to events like the collapse of New Century Financial in April 2007 and Northern Rock in September. The NBER dates the recession from December 2007 (And I don't think you'll find sources saying a recession started much earlier). There was substantial overlap, but the two events aren't even exactly coincident.--Bkwillwm (talk) 03:09, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, we can't have title say "Financial crisis and recession of 2007–2009". I wanted to rename this article to "Recession of 2007–2009" because it looks like the word "recession" is more often used as a general term for laymen to describe the fiasco from 2007 to 2009 than "financial crisis". Thus, per commmonname, WP should do the same. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 03:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
This is not an issue if we don't merge. Please explain what in WP:Commonname makes you think "layman" usage is supposed to supersede more technical usage of terms. The fact that some "laymen" and lazy writers use "financial crisis" and "recession" interchangeably does not mean that we should.--Bkwillwm (talk) 03:44, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Nevermind. It's not just "lazy writers". Like you said, professional sources, including ones I cited above, also refer to the 2007–2009 events as "recession". In fact the NBER clearly says "The committee decided that any future downturn of the economy would be a new recession and not a continuation of the recession that began in December 2007." [12] True, there are some sources that refer to the events as a "financial crisis", but it seems that "recession" is more commonly used, even in research organizations and other professional sources. The sense I got from these sources is that the "financial crisis" is only part of the "recession".-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 04:00, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
It seems like you are working under the assumption that one set of events occurred and we have to call them by one name. This is a bad assumption. A financial crisis and a recession are two distinct kinds of events, even though a financial crisis is often the cause of a recession. Please see this FRB note that uses the terms distinctly ([13]). I still have no idea why you would want to conflate the two events. The fact that every now and then someone use imprecise language doesn't justify us pooling coverage of both into a single article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bkwillwm (talkcontribs)
I think there's a misunderstanding here. My argument was only referring to the title of the article. (Why it should be "Recession of 2007–2009" rather than "Financial crisis of 2007–2009") I know that there are differences between the two terms, and I definitely think the two terms should not be used interchangeably in the article.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 04:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Ok, maybe I missed something but I still don't understand what you're going for. the content of this article is already titled "Financial crisis..." and deals with material focused on the financial crisis. We also have a "recession" article (2008–2012 global recession), which discusses the recession, and which you want to merge with this article. I'm arguing that the two are distinct and there's more than enough material for each (to continue) to have its own article. If you agree that the financial crisis and recession are distinct and not interchangeable, why do you want to merge the two articles?--Bkwillwm (talk) 05:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
To be frank, there deserves to be a separate article on the US Recession of 2007-09, which deals specifically with the timing and real economic contraction and fiscal and monetary policy responses in the US alone between Dec 07 and Jul 09, and the "Great/Global Recession" left as a mere overview article with the varioius country-specific pages (with their specific timings) linking to it. A recession article would be useful for researchers of US economic history and US economic policy. But this isn't it. This is almost purely about the financial crisis. Walrasiad (talk) 15:18, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

New proposal

 B Oh! I just got a much better idea. Perhaps instead of moving this article to "Recession of 2007–2009", maybe we move "2008–2012 global recession" to "Recession of 2007–2009"? That can be the "main article" for the recession, and this article can be just about the financial crisis component of it.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:26, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Gfcvoice (talk) 01:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

(Note: The discussion that was here was moved to Talk:2008–2012 global recession#new proposal. Please comment there instead concerning this proposal-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 00:25, 12 November 2012 (UTC))

Changes I plan to make

In a couple of days I would like to make some changes to the subsection called "Subprime lending." First, I'd like to make it connect better with the main article, "Subprime mortgage crisis," which has been expanded in recent weeks. Also, I detect a little bias in the style of the section. The worst example of bias is the paragraph that starts, "Wallison has been widely criticized for attempting to politicize the investigation..." This paragraph claims that he has even been criticized by fellow Republicans, but the support is not really there. (Read the citation, which is a Democratic staff report made at the request of Elijah Cummings.) I suggest that this paragraph be removed. However, if it is left in we will need to add some balance by noting that Paul Krugman has been an avowed Democrat for years, and the Federal Reserve is on record supporting the spread of "subprime" lending during the 1990s and early 2000s. Also, we don't need to characterize Wallison as a "long-time critic of government:" He is a scholar. There is at least one factual error: The GSEs don't lend - they buy loans. Other changes needed: We need to note that the estimate of subprime lending varies tremendously, depending on the definition. Krugman has claimed that the GSES made no subprime purchases. On the other hand, the 2011 SEC fraud case suggests they bought $2 trillion in subprime and other substandard loans. Finally, we end the section with a note that the FDIC has had to pay out $9 billion to cover bank losses. Let's put that into perspective by noting that the Congressional Budget office estimated that the GSEs has cost over $300 billion - a figure that has already gone up.Nicholas007 (talk) 21:22, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I just made the changes referred to in my posting from Dec. 2nd. I don't believe that I deleted anything that was previously in the section, with one exception: I removed the criticism of Wallison for being partisan - even in the eyes of fellow-Republicans. I read the cite and could not find the support for this assertion. More importantly, I see no value in impuning the motives of every economist or analyst. If we go down that road we should point out that Krugman has received heaps of blistering criticism for his views and his (Democratic) partisanship. But - what is the point of wasting time with this? Let's just concentrate on what people say and how well they back it up. If I have annoyed anyone with these changes please let me know your specific issues and I will try to address them. Nicholas007 (talk) 22:57, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Creation of a new comprehensive article

Now that this page is moved. I'm going to start to create a new comprehensive article that will cover, but not in depth, all the world's major financial issues since 2007. I'm thinking about titling it Global Financial Crisis, or 2007-2012 global financial crisis (now that this page is not using it). I hope that this new article can be a "main" article used as a jumping off point for articles such as Financial crisis of 2007-2008, Great recession, Euro crisis, etc. Comments and suggestions are welcome.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 18:41, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

"Financial crisis" has a specific meaning that is used to refer to a collapse in financial markets, but you want to create a very general article that refers to financial crises and the recessions that follow. I think "economic crisis" would be better since it covers a wider range of problems beyond financial crises such as lower output, high unemployment, and budgetary issues.--Bkwillwm (talk) 23:20, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, 2007–2012 global economic crisis has been created. It's not at all impressive now, but we need to begin somewhere. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 23:35, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Update - 2007–2012 global economic crisis now redirects to Great Recession. The last edit prior to the redirect was on 6 December, and can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2007%E2%80%932012_global_economic_crisis&oldid=526668957 Gfcvoice (talk) 11:26, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Why are we calling it 2007-2008

The very first footnote refers to the 2009 financial crisis yet the article call sit the "Financial crisis of 2007 and 2008." Seems quite silly. Should be 2007-2009 at least. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coopeajj (talkcontribs) 14:25, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

please expand to 2007-2009

it was not over in 2008 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.121.101 (talk) 14:46, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose: It refers to the fact that it peaked in 2008. Anon2468 (talk) 00:55, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Support: It seems to me the "peak" may have been 2009; in any case, 2009 was still in the deep of it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:48, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Outside views

I'm concerned that this is just based on a blog. Can't we get more solid sources? bobrayner (talk) 13:28, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Why doesn't it mention the possible source of this collapse based on the political mandates that Clinton handed down n the 90's? This is an article that has a conservative view of how it came about and is cited. Affordable-housing goals established in the 1990s led to a massive increase in risky, subprime mortgages.

Simply put, the financial crisis of 2008 was caused by a lot of banks making a lot of loans to a lot of people who either could not or would not pay the money back. But this explanation raises two key questions. Why did private lenders, whose job it was to assess credit risk, make those loans? And why did the army of financial regulators, with massive enforcement powers, allow 28 million high-risk loans to be made?

There's a strong case that the answers can be traced to Sept. 12, 1992. On that day presidential candidate Bill Clinton proposed, in his campaign book "Putting People First," using private pension funds to "invest" in government priorities, such as affordable housing, to "generate long-term, broad based economic benefits." Seldom has such a radical proposal been so ignored during a campaign only to later lead to such devastating consequences.

After his election, President Clinton tapped Labor Secretary Robert Reich to lead the effort to extract, as Mr. Reich put it in 1994 congressional testimony, "social, ancillary, economic benefits" from private pension investments. Mr. Reich called on pension funds to join the administration's "Economically Targeted Investment" effort. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros assured participants that "pension investments in affordable housing are as safe as pension investments in stocks and bonds."

Six pension funds ultimately agreed to invest in public housing that was backed by $100 million in federal grants and guarantees, but the program never took off. In the end, even unions and their pension funds rejected the effort to direct any part of their retirement savings toward someone else's welfare.

The Clinton administration lost the battle to use pensions to fund low-income housing, but it succeeded in winning the war by drafting Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the commercial banking system into the affordable-housing effort. It did so by exploiting a minor provision in a 1977 housing bill, the Community Reinvestment Act, that simply required banks to meet local credit needs.

Bank regulators began to pressure banks to make subprime loans. Guidelines became mandates as each bank was assigned a letter grade on CRA loans. Banks could not even open ATMs or branches, much less acquire another bank, without a passing grade—and getting a passing grade was no longer about meeting local credit needs. As then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified to Congress in 2008, "the early stages of the subprime [mortgage] market . . . essentially emerged out of the CRA."

Enlarge Image

image image Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton in September, 1992.

Effective in January 1993, the 1992 housing bill required Fannie and Freddie to make 30% of their mortgage purchases affordable-housing loans. The quota was raised to 40% in 1996, 42% in 1997, and in 2000 the Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered the quota raised to 50%. The Bush administration continued to raise the affordable-housing goals. Freddie and Fannie dutifully met those goals each and every year until the subprime crisis erupted. By 2008, when both government-sponsored enterprises collapsed, the quota had reached 56%. An internal Fannie document made public after the financial crisis ("HUD Housing Goals," March 2003) clearly shows that by 2002 Fannie officials knew perfectly well that these quotas were promoting irresponsible policy: "The challenge freaked out the business side of the house [Fannie] . . . the tenseness around meeting the goals meant that we . . . did deals at risks and prices we would not have otherwise done."

The mortgage market shows the dramatic results of this shift in policy. According to the nonprofit National Community Reinvestment Coalition, total CRA lending rose to $4.5 trillion in 2007 from $8 billion in 1991. The American Enterprise Institute's Ed Pinto found that in 1990 80% of the residential mortgage loans acquired by Fannie and Freddie were solid prime loans with healthy down payments and a well-documented capacity by borrowers to make mortgage payments. By 1999 only 45% of their acquisitions met this standard. That number fell to 15% by 2007. By 2008, roughly half of all outstanding mortgages in America were high-risk loans. In 1990, very few subprime loans were securitized. By 2007 almost all of them were.

Everything appeared to work fine as long as accommodative monetary policy and capital inflows from developing countries continued to fuel the upward float of housing prices. Home ownership grew to 69% in 2006 from 64% in 1993, but when monetary policy tightened the housing bubble broke and the mortgage-default rate soared.

It is stunning that, to this day, no one has explained how 28 million high-risk loans (the number calculated by the American Enterprise Institute's Peter Wallison) got around the "safety and soundness" rules that dominate federal and state banking laws. What happened to the enforcement army, with its laws and regulations, its power to investigate and mandate corrective action, and its ability to fine and imprison violators?

The people who destroyed lending standards by driving subprime lending blamed banks, greed and deregulation for causing the financial crisis. But a review of the banking laws adopted since 1980 reveals that not one single safety and soundness measure was repealed.

Whatever went on inside the various agencies, financial regulators—whose job it was to enforce safety and soundness regulations—in the end deferred to government affordable-housing goals. Conflicted laws created conflicted regulations and conflicted regulators. Safety and soundness considerations required that regulators step on the brake. Affordable-housing goals required them to step on the gas. Government policy tried to make private wealth serve both government and private purposes. But wealth cannot serve two masters, and in the end the government was the dominant master.

Mr. Gramm, a former Republican chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is senior partner of US Policy Metrics and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Solon, a former economic policy adviser to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, is a partner at US Policy Metrics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.226.180.138 (talk) 15:19, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Fed notes

This analysis of Federal Reserve minutes released February 2014 may be useful in improving this article. User:Fred Bauder Talk 14:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

>> Repo Fire-Sale Plan Said Within Reach After Fed Sounds Alarm (Lihaas (talk) 20:17, 11 March 2014 (UTC)).

New edited collection

New edited collection: The Global Financial Crisis and its Budget Impacts in OECD Nations: Fiscal Responses and Future Challenges edited by John Wanna, Evert A. Lindquist, and Jouke de Vries, 2015, Edward Elgar Publishing. Maybe of interest? Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 19:57, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Crunch Lit by Katy Shaw, 2015, Bloomsbury Academic Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 01:17, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

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2007-2010

There is a re-direct for these years also. I read the previous debate on 2007-2009, so not sure if this follows that conclusion.--RedmondKane (talk) 05:14, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

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Move?

With all of the references to 2009 in the article, should this article be retitled Financial crisis of 2007–09? Blaylockjam10 (talk) 01:08, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

The way I see it, 2007 was the credit-crunch year, 2008 was the Lehmans-collapse year and 2009 was the first year of the Great Recession. So, I'm OK with the name of the article as it is. Naturally a financial crisis is followed by a recession, but the article is about the crisis, not the resulting recession. This has been discussed before above; see "Why are we calling it 2007-2008" and "please expand to 2007-2009". Wildfowl (talk) 18:28, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
We need some reliable sources on this. What years do academic articles and other scholarly works date the Financial Crisis to? Once we have a few good reliable sources, then we can decide on this. LK (talk) 08:01, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Good point. The two crisis points were: (1) 09-Aug-2007 – banks stop lending to each other, after two BNP Paribas hedge funds ban withdrawals; (2) 15-Sep-2008 – collapse of Lehman Brothers. Anyway, I changed the first sentence of the lead section of the article yesterday back to what it was earlier in the year, when it was more consistent with the current name of the article (which I support). Wildfowl (talk) 22:59, 2 November 2016 (UTC)


Subprime vs Credit Default Swaps (CDS)

Data clearly shows subprime delinquency as the precipitation factor vis-a-vise CDSes - Fannie/Freddie delinquency rates were soaring(defaults rapidly increasing) by the end of the second quarter 2008 and on a very steep incline. The first major CDS default did not occur until Nov. 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis#/media/File:Mortgage_delinquencies_by_loan_type_-_1998-2010.GIF

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012_02_01_archive.html

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/april-2012/a-look-at-credit-default-swaps-and-their-impact-on-the-european-debt-crisis

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.210.32.78 (talk) 04:47, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

The lead text says "The precipitating factor was a high default rate in the subprime home mortgage sector", so that's OK then? Wildfowl (talk) 19:41, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Mentioning CRA in the introduction?

″The precipitating factor was a high default rate in the subprime home mortgage sector. The expansion of this sector had been encouraged by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) . . .″

The "expansion of the Home mortgage sector" has absolute no relation to the "high default rate" of said sector.

If the expansion was into less credit-worthy markets, of course it would have a relation to high default rates. Maybe I don't get your point.

The link that leads to the Community Reinvestment Act states:

". . .approximately 50% of subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by the CRA, and another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated bank subsidiaries and affiliates. Barr noted that institutions fully regulated by CRA made "perhaps one in four" sub-prime loans, and that "the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight"."

"The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission formed by the US Congress in 2009 to investigate the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, concluded "the CRA was not a significant factor in subprime lending or the crisis"."

Of course government reports are not going to indite a government program as the problem, and is it surprising to anyone the proposed solution is more government oversight? The points made provide a logical pathway to understand the causes and effects of the crisis and are supported by RSes.


Predatory lending practices "Kathleen C. Engel and Patricia A. McCoy noted that banks could receive CRA credit by lending or brokering loans in lower-income areas that would be considered a risk for ordinary lending practices. CRA regulated banks may also inadvertently facilitate these lending practices by financing lenders. They noted that CRA regulations, as then administered and carried out by Fannie Mae and Freddie MAC, did not penalize banks that engaged in these lending practices. They recommended that the federal agencies use the CRA to sanction behavior that either directly or indirectly increased predatory lending practices by lowering the CRA rating of any bank that facilitated in these lending practices."

Why not begin the piece with something like that?

Should CRA even be mentioned in the introduction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.154.189.233 (talk) 21:22, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

This article jumps around a lot from sections, POV and scope - it needs a major overhaul

Too much for my time now... but this is an important article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.210.32.78 (talk) 08:24, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Ongoing reorganisation

The lead ("lede") section had developed into a verbose and chaotic shambles. I stripped most of it out and placed it in a new section, "Summary". I then added a simple summary into the lede.

More work is needed. There is duplication between the Summary and Background sections. Will people please remove duplicate material from Summary. Any remaining text can perhaps be worked into the Background section. The Summary section should disappear altogether once this has been done. Wildfowl (talk) 23:43, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

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Timing of US Housing Market Peak

I recently reverted some changes to the article which shifted the US housing market bubble peak from 2004 to 2006 or 2007.

My reason for doing so is that I think 2006 was the first year of the subprime crisis. "U.S. Home Construction Index was down over 40% as of mid-August 2006" – for example.

The changes that I reverted might be correct, but they may contradict information about timing of subprime given elsewhere in the article. Some checking needs to be done. Wildfowl (talk) 00:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

An example of a potential contradiction is the fact that Wikipedia article "Subprime mortgage crisis", section "Background and timeline of events", says "The immediate cause or trigger of the crisis was the bursting of the United States housing bubble which peaked in approximately 2005–2006." Wildfowl (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
The 2004 date is the peak of Quarterly Homeownership Rates. The "bubble" is an inflation of valuation, not ownership rate - therefore, peak housing prices (reached in the 4th quarter of 2006) are a more appropriate indicator. See citations 18 cf 19. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.210.32.78 (talk) 06:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Cause and effect

I really want to focus on consensus building, so please accept what I am about to say as a pure rant. As Smallbones pointed out, and I so far failed to properly support, the financial crisis is over. I don't know if it ended in 2009 or in 2010, but by 2011 it was gone. The reason I know this is that everything related to sovereign European debt is a separate story that certainly has its origins in the financial crisis, but needs no more then a mention on that article. How do I know this? Well let us assume on the contrary, that a strong casual link implies that the article on the cause must cover everything caused and examine where that might lead us.

Sovereign European debt needs to be covered by the financial crisis article. But then the financial crisis should arguably be covered in the housing bubble article.

And should not that be covered by the great moderation article? Why, indeed it should. And should not the great moderation be covered in the monetary policy article. Why, where else should it be covered? And should we not view the advances in monetary policy that led to the great moderation as one element of the progress that has been made in macroeconomics in general. Why, how can we think otherwise? And should we not view almost everything that happened in macroeconomics since the great depression as the continual application of math to that particular problem? Why, there is really no other choice.

And now, finnally, is math anything but logic, and did we not get all logic from Aristotle? Why, yes we did. Luckily, we stop here and examine what we found.

The root cause of Greece's problems today is Aristotle. This is fair and just because 1) He was Greek so they deserve it. and 2) Aristotle is my least favorite philosopher of all times. And it is a good thing I got to choose where we stop because the next Greek guy on that chain is my favorite philosopher of all times and I hate to see him tarnished with senseless accusations.

→Yaniv256 talk contribs 09:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Excellent rant! By the way, I was looking at an al Jazerra article and they referred to it as the "North Atlantic financial crisis", not bad. Sadly, the crisis continues to unfold most obviously in Greece where the decline which began in 2008 continues and Europe holds its breath, see "Greek Economy Shrank 6.2% in Second Quarter". User:Fred Bauder Talk 10:17, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Fred, you are mixing up "recession" and "financial crisis" again and should know better. Just to be clear - if you are talking about the general economy then that might be a recession, but if you are talking about people being afraid that the general banking system is going to go under, that's a financial crisis. For a long time now I've issued a challenge on this page. Can you find a reliable source that says the financial crisis extended after 2009? Don't bother looking in this article, it's not there. I'll make a bold prediction - you won't be able to find one anywhere. Smallbones (talk) 19:50, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Never did mix up those, financial crisis does not have a technical definition, and if it did have the one you suggest it would apply to the unfolding Eurozone crisis. We've covered "recession" a number of times. It does have a technical definition, but we are not using it here. As to the content of the article, a poor article does no invalidate the subject it is supposed to be about. I am confused about the distinction between the subject matter of this article and 2008–2012 global recession which Great Recession redirects to. I think, at least in the case of the United States the "crisis" would be the unresolved problem of foreclosures due to overvalued assessments and the political deadlock. Just why are the interest rates offered by the Federal Reserve to banks near zero and the unemployment rate near 15% and a fiscal cliff looming in January? What is the deal with trillion dollar deficits? There is a cause for why the crisis atmosphere persists? Why is the "crisis" semi-permanent? Is the confidence fairy napping? User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
I'll just point out that you have failed to come up with a reliable source. There is wide agreement about what a financial crisis is (see below) - it's about financial institutions and the financial system not working. The banks in the Eurozone are working, you can cash a check, get a loan, etc. No bank runs, stock market is up. Smallbones (talk) 03:10, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Yields on the sovereign debt of the weaker countries in the Eurozone is rapidly rising to an unsustainable level. Resolution remains possible. There are even hedge funds you can invest in which make that bet. User:Fred Bauder Talk 03:59, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Fred your insistence on ignoring the distinction we draw between the sovereign debt crisis and the banking crisis that preceded it does not do you justice, and frankly is starting to get a tiny bit disruptive. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 11:37, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
I would agree that "[recession] does have a technical definition, but we are not using it here". However, that's part of the problem, not part of the solution. The definition of "recession" is straightforward and widely accepted. This encyclopædia should not be labelling something as a recession if it isn't a recession. bobrayner (talk) 23:56, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Fred, the reason why the interest rate is on the zero lower bound is that there is no inflation. Reading any scholarly paper on the topic of the "zero lower bound" should convince you of that, and without checking I think Bernanke wrote a couple of those himself. In turn, through a strong causal link, this is due to the high unemployment. It is very hard to see inflation in a high unemployment setting, but the reasons for that are very complicated so I will not get into it now. So what caused the unemployment? Well, cyclical unemployment and recessions are just two names of the exact same thing.
So now I will let you in on a little insider secret of the economics profession. Nobody knows what causes recessions. It may be that each one has a different cause, but then why are they so similar? They also seem to be morphing slowly in some way that is not yet understood. I can provide references to all of the above if you are interested.
Bottom line, the last causal link we would have liked to transverse. The one saying that the recession was caused by problems in the banking sector, has the scientific validity of a correlation of say 0.6-0.7 without any agreed upon model that would underline why it may be indeed true that the correlation between financial crises and recessions is not just a statistical curiosity, or as many in the profession claim is actually a result of the ability of market participants to foresee the coming recession and take protective measures in advance.
So there you go. Your interest rate argument relies on two strong causal links and one that is very much in doubt. Your unemployment argument, need just that one last causal link to be valid. Too bad it is so weak, this last one. But I think we all believe it is true, regardless of the lack of evidence. So let us put that issue aside. Still we need to travel across a casual link. And the problem with doing that was the subject of my above rant. Doing the same thing you want to do here again and again, the article could expand to cover everything everywhere. Why, it covers the entire globe for five years, as it is. I would say that it is lucky that geographically we are already bound by having all of humanity stuck on the same planet. Time however, does not offer such a natural bound on hubris. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 00:06, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks!!! There is very little in life that beats being appreciated by your opposition. Many people don't get it, but that is a great joy. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 19:02, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Naturally, that joy only appears when you appreciate the opposition to begin with, and that may be the reason so many people don't get it. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 19:12, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I take issue with the whole media narrative pushed in "The precipitating factor was a high default rate in the United States subprime home mortgage sector. The expansion of this sector was encouraged by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA),[10][11][12][13] a US federal law designed to help low- and moderate-income Americans get mortgage loans.[14]" First off that was *a* precipitating factor but not the only one. And clearly nothing about the act made financial institutions commit fraud or even the predatory loan practices that were causing issues. Shouldn't the lead sentence of the "causes" section discuss that?

Then you have "Many of these subprime (high risk) loans were then bundled and sold, finally accruing to quasi-government agencies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).[15] The implicit guarantee by the US federal government created a moral hazard and contributed to a glut of risky lending." We know that Fannie and Freddie could have failed and been bailed out without causing the huge crisis that we saw. And stating that "the US federal government created a moral hazard" is a conclusion from an ideological viewpoint. Where is the sourcing in that? If I went into a an article on a serial killer and said, well the government made him do it and in an AnCap utopia, he would never have committed those crimes, we'd demand some sources for such an extraordinary claim. Yet the same is done here. 66.193.18.10 (talk) 17:39, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at a sourced revision. I directly mentioned predatory lending as a cause instead of citing the CRA -- which isn't to say the CRA couldn't be one of the conditions that made it easier for things to happen but there are definitely more than a few elements if you look at the articles I referenced. Singling out the CRA, however, seems to be drawing a POV conclusion. Certainly any discussion of moral hazard is more of a conclusion than an encyclopedic citation of what caused the crisis. Perhaps someone else can better synthesize the many elements here and rewrite the paragraph further. 75.118.96.54 (talk) 04:40, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

I have replaced the text of the "Subprime mortgage bubble" section with an itemised list, as the list of causes was getting rather long. The earlier text on the CRA has been restored. Note that the recent wording on predatory lending has been retained, in a logical place in the text, complete with citations.
The phrase "encouraged by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)" seems a balanced assessment, since it does not say that the crisis would not have happened without the CRA. It is certainly correct as a fact, and the CRA can't have been an insignificant factor in the crisis, surely. Omitting CRA from the analysis sounds too much like rewriting history in a non-NPOV way. Anyway, the statement is backed by several citations.
The statement "The implicit guarantee by the US federal government created a moral hazard" is certainly correct. Standing on a cliff-edge creates a risk of death even if you don't actually fall. However it is possible to question whether the guarantee actually led to any risky lending, and if so how much. The phrase "contributed to" covers that uncertainty, I think.
In addition, the text needed to be tightened up a bit, as repetition and incoherence were creeping in. Wildfowl (talk) 20:37, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

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Timeline

The article doesn't really have a coherent timeline. It is long on "why" and short on "what". Perhaps a brief section entitled "Timeline" or "Sequence of events" would be useful? It should be fairly early in the article, and should give a list of events in date order. Does anybody agree? (I could provide some of the data.) Wildfowl (talk) 21:58, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

@Wildfowl: A timeline summary of events would certainly improve the article. Jonpatterns (talk) 06:46, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Subprime mortgage bubble - removal of causes

Recently on the 'Subprime mortgage bubble' section some of the causes have been removed, citing lack of academic consensus, see diff.

Maybe the causes could be restored, but qualified with which organisation is making the claim? Jonpatterns (talk) 06:49, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Update 'removal of causes' edit has been reverted. Jonpatterns (talk) 14:53, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

I rearranged the causes section a bit to clarify the lack of academic consensus (It's discussed later on, but it's important that readers understand that the same caveats apply to the bulleted form). I didn't directly speak to sources, because I felt that would be too clunky, but if folks feel that the revision is too Weasely, I can definitely put in a brief discussion of the consensus/dissent report in the FCIC report and various news articles. GeekX (talk) 17:19, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Subprime mortgage bubble & the CRA

Recently, User:Gravuritas, made a small revert to my edit of the first section, removing the may have caveat from the discussion of the role of the CRA in the second section of the article. My sense is that this claim is on far more shaky ground academically than the other causes (there are Reliable sources in this article that explicitly say the CRA played no role, whereas I don't believe that any RS would argue that, say, Moral Hazard on the part of banks was not at least partly at fault). I would go ahead and revert, but in the interest of avoiding at WP:WAR, I'm leaving it as it is until a rough consensus is reached. The treatment of the question further down in the article seems more balanced, but perhaps the subprime mortgage bubble section needs a full revamp. GeekX (talk) 16:19, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi GeekX, and thanks for your input. I decided to have another go at getting that section right. See what you think, and feel free to change what I have done. I decided to stay with no "may have" caveat because the CRA undoubtedly encouraged banks to lend to higher risk families, but we can't know whether they actually did lend more, or by how much. Also, the header to the list includes the words "some or all of the following factors must have contributed". Wildfowl (talk) 20:19, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi, had a look at a couple of the refs, but they were behind paywalls. @Geekx, which sources say CRA played no role?
Gravuritas (talk) 21:05, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Advanced versus developing/emerging economies after financial crisis

The claim made in the Financial crisis of 2007–2008#Consequences for subsequent economic growth section that advanced economies outpaced developing/emerging economies before the crisis (but not after) seems wrong. Surely China, India, etc had higher growth rates both before and after the crisis? Wildfowl (talk) 17:55, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

US economic effects

A sub heading, 'distribution of wealth in theUS' includes a graph showing income distribution.

Income is income, wealth is wealth. Two entirely different economic concepts. Crawiki (talk) 11:03, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Hardly entirely unrelated. It is tricky to become wealthy without a large income. Pinkbeast (talk) 01:37, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Role of economic forecasting

I recently reverted some changes. Here's why:

  • strangely truncated sentences
  • removal of text
  • arbitrary changes
  • a feeling that the edits were impulsive and ill-thought-out

I may well be wrong! Please let me know why below! Wildfowl (talk) 22:39, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

How about "Global financial crisis of 2008"?

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to move. Reclosed. I believe that there is no consensus to move for the following reasons: (1) most editors agree that that the crisis began in 2007 and carried on at least through 2009; (2) some editors have presented evidence that indicate that the crisis carries on to date; (3) no evidence has been presented that the proposed title is commonly used. --regentspark (comment) 14:30, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

no consensus to move. On hold. This is not going to make you guys happy, but I don't see a consensus to move at this point. I agree that there is a general consensus that the current title is less than perfect. However, it doesn't seem to me that there is consensus for any of the alternative titles. For example, I see some disagreement as to whether this crisis was a 2008 only event, whether it spanned 2008-2009, or whether it is still ongoing. Sometimes, a messy title is better than a neat, but possibly inaccurate one. --regentspark (comment) 13:32, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

2007–2012 global financial crisisGlobal financial crisis of 2008 – The argument is that the beginning and end are much harder to call than the high mark. Otherwise this would never end and the article could expand to cover everything financial under the sun till the end of times. Moreover, a five year span is no longer a crisis. A crisis is something swift and abrupt. Did you know that Pangaea is still breaking apart? Imagine they would have to carry around a "200M BC-2012" in a prefix and update every year! Yes, it is still happening! Really? Yes. Scroll down all the way and read. Yaniv256 (talk) 06:09, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

You have a point, and I think we do have an article on the acute crisis of 2008, or should; however, the title you suggest would not accurately describe the Great Recession which is still in progress. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:14, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
And indeed it should not, as a recession is a lengthy ordeal which does warrant a separate article. It is also primarily a real economy event, so the tag "financial" is inappropriate. Yaniv256 (talk) 14:00, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I support this, this was one of the issues that was completely ignored in the RfC above. SPat talk 15:20, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
My true feelings are that dropping the "global" puff tag would also be advisable. But, I am holding back on that one as I am guessing there is no chance of establishing a consensus. Yaniv256 (talk) 17:01, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Moreover, with all due respect to the science of econometrics, it will probably never be quite clear if the financial crisis caused the recession or predicted it. So the two must be separate phenomena. Yaniv256 (talk) 17:11, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I think the article's title doesn't distinguish between the two related financial crises and the related recessions. The initial crisis should be covered here (pretty much as it is) while the 2009-present European sovereign-debt crisis is already covered in another article. The question is how to date the initial crisis. Clearly the crisis hit it's peak in Fall 2008, but it could be said to begin with Bear Stearns's collapse in March. The collapse of Northern Rock in could also be considered the beginning of the crisis or it might just be mentioned as an antecedent.--Bkwillwm (talk) 04:06, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Global financial crisis of 2007-2009 would perhaps be better, recognizing the fuzziness around the edges. Note that there is almost no mention in the text about 2010, 2011, or 2012. (Just search the text to see) All the hits here are on the publication dates of the sources. Since there is nothing about a financial crisis in 2010 or later, we have to change the article title. Also, please note the stabilization section - nobody has added to or refuted anything in this section. An obvious move. Smallbones (talk) 18:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Fine with me. In fact, anything that can get a consensus and change the current name to one of the mainstream names would be fine with me. But we got to change it! No encyclopedia in the world is going to call it that! The reason I didn't suggest this name is only that I thought it would not pass, because people would claim that this or that happened in 2010, or that it is not over yet. Why don't we put both names up for a poll together with the current name, and eliminate from the bottom? They both get my support. That said, my copy of "Advanced Macroeconomics" (2012) by David Romer titles the epilogue "The finanical and macroeconomic crisis of 2008 and beyond" so there is no shame in cutting the edges out. Yaniv256 (talk) 21:00, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Not sure on the mechanics of what you're proposing: an RfC limited to three choices? Go ahead with it in any case. Smallbones (talk) 21:14, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I am posting a table below. We can keep having this discussion here while at the same time casting our votes in the summary table. Anyone who can't figure how to vote in the table by himself or herself is welcome to post his wishes here and we will edit them into the table. Yaniv256 (talk) 21:56, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Financial crisis of 2007-2009 is recognizable, more concise without "global", and more precise than "2008" (but not overly precise).Jojalozzo 21:50, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

As I understand the arguments - for:the term "Global" is very commonly used with the rest, so why not use it? against: everything in the financial world today is global, especially something as important as this - so it is simply redundant. I'm vacillating! Smallbones (talk) 02:45, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
I think it is really not very important if we keep the global or not. Don't stress about it. The main thing is getting that -2012 down. Yaniv256 (talk) 03:21, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Oppose to any change The Global Financial Crisis has multiple dimensions, including the Euro Crisis, which is still ongoing. The crisis isn't quite over yet. This financial crisis is unique because of its global effects, and there "Global" part should definitely stay.---- Futuretrillionaire (talk) 05:51, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

One thing to note is that whilst the effects have had many ramifications in many countries, a number of large economies such as China, India and Brazil have continued to grow, albeit at varying paces - there is no financial crisis, banking crisis or government finance crisis in a number of countries. Therefore the "global" term is not all that accurate. It's kind of tighter I think to call this the International Banking & Debt Crisis, but there you go - there will always be different names for it - the common one is the one we should go with. The date range is a different issue. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 11:17, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment: Futuretrillionaire raises a fair point and looking at the multidimensional aspects, one can argue for a continuing financial crisis. However if we adopt that argument, the article really needs to describe all those aspects (in detail) and not just almost exclusively concentrate on the 2008 events and there causes and direct consequences, because in that case the article name is still a misnomer. On that note people here should have a look at 2008–2012 global recession as well, the naming there appears at least at first glance even much more problematic.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:05, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I am posting a relevant chart. I believe a paper in the IMF Working Paper Series counts as a valid secondary source and it was commented on in one of The Economist's blogs. See the cited paper for details.

 
Figure 3 of Laeven, Luc; Valencia, Fabian (2012). "Systemic Banking Crises Database: An Update". IMF Working Paper Series.

→Yaniv256 talk contribs 19:58, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Were you thinking the chart suggests that the crisis spiked sharply and is then effectively over? It refers to banking collapses? The article obviously struggles a little with definitions because the "financial crisis" covers so much turf - many would argue that whilst the banking crisis is still around (recently Spanish banks for example), it has now morphed into a European sovereign debt crisis and a US debt crisis - and of course we have articles such as the ridiculously lengthily-introduced European sovereign-debt crisis. Maybe this article does need narrowing down a bit to just the initial crisis, leading on to all the other articles. On the other hand, if it's meant to be a summary article, the title probably does need to be more general. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 20:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
I did mean to suggest that, but now I noticed that the caption clearly reads "number of systemic banking crisis starting in a given year". So, come to think of it, it might not be so relevant after all, and had I noticed that before posting I would probably not have posted it. I guess we are best to just take it into account in some general off-hand way. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 20:25, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Four-way RfC summary table

User Keep current name Change to "Global financial crisis of 2007-2009" Change to "Global financial crisis of 2008" Remove "Global" prefix
Yaniv256 (talk) 21:56, 30 July 2012 (UTC) oppose support support support
SPat talk 22:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC) oppose support support neutral
Bkwillwm (talk) 03:52, 31 July 2012 (UTC) oppose weak oppose support weak oppose
Smallbones (talk) 03:59, 31 July 2012 (UTC) oppose support weak support mixed
LK (talk) 14:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC) oppose support support oppose
Jojalozzo 21:46, 31 July 2012 (UTC) oppose strong support support strong support
Jason from nyc (talk) 01:52, 2 August 2012 (UTC) oppose support support abstain
Fleetham (talk) 21:38, 2 August 2012 (UTC) support oppose support oppose
Futuretrillionaire (talk) 05:51, 9 August 2012 (UTC) support oppose oppose oppose
Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 11:21, 9 August 2012 (UTC) oppose oppose support oppose
User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC) support oppose oppose oppose
bobrayner (talk) 19:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC) oppose support support support
Marian Dan (talk) 05:51, 9 August 2012 (UTC) support oppose oppose oppose
signature !vote !vote !vote !vote

It's pretty clear that "Global financial crisis of 2008" is the consensus choice. Can we make the switch now? Smallbones (talk) 13:58, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Only if a good reason could be found for such a change. User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
Fred, see above - there is no mention of anything after 2009 in the article! There are no additions, opposition, etc. to the section that said stabilization happened in 2009, and there are no reliable sources stating that there was a financial crisis after 2009. Three strikes and a consensus and the title is out!. Smallbones (talk) 19:33, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, in general, though we might want to call it "2008 global financial crisis" to remove the ugly "of 2008" or, if you guys believe it's still happening, then I'd go w/ "Global financial crisis starting 2008", as this makes it clear that only the starting date is known. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:44, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
Quoting wp:naming conventions (numbers and dates):

There are many events that repeat on a regular or semi-regular basis, such as the Summer Olympics or the U.S. presidential elections. ... While the date is up front, this gives a maybe undue focus to the year, rather than to the event - This format is however widely used, so acceptable as Wikipedia page name format. ... For events that recur at non-regular intervals, for instance Ecumenical councils, the articles on the individual events usually avoid a date indication, but are numbered/characterised otherwise (e.g. place of event, combined with numerical), for instance: Fourth Council of the Lateran; First Council of Lyon; Second Council of Lyon; Council of Vienne - similarly for Crusades: First Crusade, Second Crusade, etc... Note, however, that exceptions to the rule of avoiding dates are applied according to established practice, for instance: Crusade of 1101 (minor crusade, not numbered, and generally indicated by the year it occurred).

→Yaniv256 talk contribs 16:58, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, The content of this article ends in 2009 because that's a logical end to the global financial and economic events that occurred during that period. After that it transitioned into a regional crisis centered on 17 countries that adopted the Euro as their common currency, while even directly abutting countries remain financially and economically stable. Even the financial and economic instability created by the so-called Arab Spring is so far limited to a couple of countries. 71.241.203.207 (talk) 23:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
I'll be bold and request that an admin (needed because of move protection) move the page to Global financial crisis of 2008 as shown by a clear consensus in the table above, and the complete lack of any reliable sources to support the current name. Smallbones (talk) 00:18, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
  Not done: page move requests should be made at Wikipedia:Requested moves. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:30, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


I find it kind of sad to ask this, but do you guys find this close to be reasonable? I have been discussing it in RegentsPark's talk page and would appreciate if some of the participants could contribute to that discussion. Please consider, do we really want more reruns of this show? →Yaniv256 talk contribs 10:55, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I don't know why the request was made. There is well-sourced information in the lede that the crisis began in August, 2007 and how to resolve the crisis remains on the front burner in the United States presidential election. Our articles need to reflect events as they occur in the world. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I have concluded discussing the close with RegentsPark. I find his decision quite improper but do not plan to press the matter forward in the near future, due to exhaustion, retaining my option to do so at a reasonable later date. If anyone wants to pick up the (Olympic) torch, they are welcome, but I doubt anyone cares enough. Smallbones was here before me, probably there was someone before him and somebody new will surely turn up one day and get this embarrassment fixed. The following is meant mostly to that editor.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.

— Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

→Yaniv256 talk contribs 00:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

If anyone wants to try I think maybe "global financial crisis (starting 2007-2008)" or some varity of that might do the trick. Fred, would you find that acceptable? Would you be willing to nominate it if you do? If not, do you have any proposal other than the current name? →Yaniv256 talk contribs 22:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Reading Fred again I am guessing maybe he would prefer "Global financial crisis (starting 2007)". That is just as good for me, provided it can get a consensus. Why, I would even go for "Global financial crisis (starting August 2007)" if you guys dig that. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 02:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I would have also thought the financial crisis continued into 2009. I remember in college in 2008/09 that the content I was learning was almost in synchronicity with what was going on in the news. It's sad to believe that my year 11 (2007/08) (last year of high school) would be stained to catastrophic proportions with only that year being solely responsible for the big trouble for years to come. It felt like the crisis began during my first year at college, I do remember the unfortunate credit crunch news coming in in 2007, probably towards the end of the 2006/07 year, but felt the majority of the pain was felt in 2008/09. →WikiRunner14 talk contribs 22:05, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Should the article mention HSBC anywhere?

Hi all, I'd like to request comment from other editors about the lack of mention of HSBC in the article. Profit warnings by HSBC in 2017 were noted by the BBC in 2010 as one of the first signs of the crisis, and there are other sources like this academic paper by Mauro F. Guillén which also list HSBC's profit warnings as one of the first indicators. The article is pretty long and comprehensive, but is there any reason that at least one reference to HSBC is not justified?--Jwslubbock (talk) 19:39, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree that writing something based on this would be justified, yes. Pinkbeast (talk) 01:28, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
I would have to agree with you, that it would be an importance inclusion that would make more sense of the article. The UK crisis began in 2007, earlier, and separately, than the economic crisis began showing end result signs in the U.S. As far as materials supporting this, if the docs above are not accessible, there should be other publicly available information, that supports this observation of HSBC. Stevenmitchell (talk) 11:07, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Glass-Steagal repeal

I just removed Glass-Steagal repeal as a cause, but accidentally blanked my own edit summary so here is my reasoning: Glass-Steagal repeal as a cause of the crisis is commonly alleged, but is controversial at best and not supported by academic literature. The only source cited here was an editorial from a progressive news website. I would be happy to see it added back with better sources and less matter-of-fact language. 2601:647:C900:774:80CB:939C:5C89:C503 (talk) 19:54, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

  • I've reverted that deletion. You can't argue against the proposition that the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, by effectively removing the separation between investment banks and depository banks, increased speculation on the part of depository banks. All sources I have read suggest that that is the case. Do you have a source that says to the contrary? CitizenEd (talk) 22:51, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 May 2019 and 2 July 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Tailz88.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Bullsh!t

We all know lending money to people who have a low commitment to paying it back was the cause of this. Barney Frank. Hello. I was there. I was a victim. Why blame institutions who were forced by the government to make risky loans, and let the government off the hook? Who OWNS the printing presses that printed this money and out it into circulation via the lender banks? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.18.114.167 (talk) 19:47, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Wholly agree man. It's all a publicity campaign. The govt isnt ever gonna blame itself for a problem they created. 207.138.105.10 (talk) 20:10, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Causes: Systemic crisis of capitalism?

I think the first few senteces under this heading are unrelated to the article. Referring to the 1998 book has little to do with 2008 crisis. These judgements should be left for more generalized articles like Financial crisis. I propose to rework this section. AXONOV (talk) 10:59, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Request to change section title

Wanted some feedback before making a change to the article - Currently, the article contains a section titled "Economists who predicted the crisis". I propose the section be renamed: "Notable warnings made prior to the Crisis" or something along those lines.

My justification for this is that the term "predicted" may be too strong and "Economist" fails to encompass the set of individuals outside the academic profession who were early in their warnings of the 08 crisis. Few people actually predicted the exact timing of the collapse and of those that did, even fewer could estimate the extent of the crisis and explain the variety of factors that caused it. This change would allow the section to contain all information relating to financial journalists, industry economists, academics, traders etc. who gave early and explicit warnings of the crisis (including their justification) rather than just picking out the few Economists who wrote of the dangers underpinning the subprime mortgage market prior to the collapse. Sadke4 (talk) 07:50, 21 November 2022 (UTC)