Fall of the Titans, a study of the financial behemoths that crumbled in 2008

Abstract

At the heart of the global financial crisis of 2008-09 crisis were the American real estate market, age old financial institutions, and their greed. This study goes back to that tumultuous period of 2007-2009, when some of the world's biggest names in finance, the players that were considered "too big to fail", failed. Through careful studies of international and American economics, politics and society, the first part of this thesis chronicles the events and factors that led to a crisis of such gargantuan proportions. In the second part, we take a closer look at Lehman Brothers, a 150-year old institution that symbolized American capitalism at one time, crumbled because of its own greed. We study how excessive exposure to the mortgage market, sinister accounting, flawed risk management and failed corporate governance led this mammoth to its ultimate demise. And in the final part, we see the measures that are absolutely essential to ensure that the world does not have to witness a repeat of the financial crisis of 2008. We study the policy actions undertaken by the US government to keep a close watch on financial institutions and to safeguard the economy from another such catastrophe.