By John Frisby • Mar 17th, 2009 • Category: Uncategorized

1968: The US Government mortgage-related agency, Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) is converted from a federal government entity to a stand-alone government sponsored enterprise (GSE) which purchases and securitizes mortgages to facilitate liquidity in the primary mortgage market. The move takes the debt of Fannie Mae off of the books of the government.

President: Johnson – Dem      House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1970: Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) is created by an act of Congress, as a government sponsored enterprise, to buy mortgages on the secondary market, pool them, and sell them as mortgage-backed securities to investors on the open market; 1971 it issues its first Mortgage Participation Certificate security.

President: Nixon – Rep        House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1974: Equal Credit Opportunity Act imposes heavy sanctions for financial institutions found guilty of discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age.

President: Ford – Rep          House – Dem  Senate - Dem

 

1977: Community Reinvestment Act mandates banks and savings and loan associations to offer credit to individuals and businesses in lower income areas 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.) It defines discrimination under Equal Credit Opportunity Act in terms of loans to different types of neighborhoods, as well as to individual borrowers.

President: Carter – Dem         House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1980: The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (DIDMCA) of 1980 granted all thrifts, including savings and loan associations, the power to make consumer and commercial loans and to issue transaction accounts and exempted federally chartered savings banks, installment plan sellers and chartered loan companies from state usury (unlimited interest rates) limits.

President: Reagan – Rep       House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1981: Each Federal Reserve bank establishes a Community Affairs Office to ensure compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act.

President: Reagan – Rep       House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1982: Alternative Mortgage Transaction Parity Act of 1982 (AMTPA) preempts state laws allows lenders to originate mortgages with features such as adjustable-rate mortgages, balloon payments, and negative amortization and “allows lenders to make loans with terms that may obscure the total cost of a loan”

President: Reagan – Rep       House – Dem   Senate – Dem (prior to election)

 

1986: Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA) ended prohibited taxpayers from deducting interest on consumer loans, such as credit cards and auto loans, while allowing them to deduct interest paid on mortgage loans, providing an incentive for homeowners to take out home equity loans to pay off consumer debt.

President: Reagan – Rep         House – Dem   Senate – Rep 

 

1985-89: The Savings and Loan Crisis. The elimination of Regulation Q which had capped interest rates banks were allowed to pay, imprudent lending during the late 1970s inflationary period, as well as other causes, led to short term liabilities becoming greater than long term assets for many Savings and Loans.

President: Reagan – Rep         House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1989-1995: Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (”FIRREA”) established the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) which closed hundreds of insolvent savings and loans holding $519 billion in assets and moved regulatory authority to the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). The U.S. government ultimately appropriated 105 billion dollars to resolve the crisis. After banks repaid loans through various procedures, there was a net loss to taxpayers of 40 billion dollars by the end of 1999.

President: Bush – Rep             House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1992: Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to devote a percentage of their lending to support affordable housing increasing their pooling and selling of such loans as securities; Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) created to oversee them.

President: Bush – Rep        House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1993: The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston published “Closing the Gap: A Guide to Equal Opportunity Lending” which recommended a series of measures to better serve low-income and minority households, including loosening income thresholds for receiving a mortgage, influencing government policy and housing activist demands on banks thereafter.

President: Clinton – Dem         House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1994: Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994 (IBBEA) repeals the interstate provisions of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 that regulated the actions of bank holding companies.

President: Clinton – Dem        House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1995: New Community Reinvestment Act regulations break down home-loan data by neighborhood, income, and race, enabling community groups to complain to banks and regulators about CRA compliance. Regulations also allows community groups that market loans to collect a broker’s fee. Fannie Mae allowed to receive affordable housing credit for buying subprime securities.

President: Clinton – Dem        House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

1997: The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 expanded the capital-gains exclusion to $500,000 (per couple) from $125,000, encouraging people to invest in second homes and investment properties.

President: Clinton – Dem        House – Rep    Senate – Rep

 

1998: Incipient housing bubble as inflation-adjusted home price appreciation exceeds 10% per year in most West Coast metropolitan areas.  “Financial Services Modernization Act” killed in Senate because of no restrictions on Community Reinvestment Act-related community groups.  Federal Reserve Bank of New York rescues Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund in 1998, which a Government Accountability Office critic said encouraged risky loans on assumption government will bail out “too big to fail” banks and companies.

President: Clinton – Dem        House – Rep    Senate – Rep

 

1999: Fannie Mae eases the credit requirements to encourage banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is not good enough to qualify for conventional loans.  Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act “Financial Services Modernization Act” repeals Glass-Steagall Act, deregulates banking, insurance and securities into a financial services industry allow financial institutions to grow very large; limits Community Reinvestment Coverage of smaller banks and makes community groups report certain financial relationships with banks.

President: Clinton – Dem        House – Rep    Senate – Rep

 

2000: Lenders originating $160 billion worth of subprime, up from $40 billion in 1994. Fannie Mae buys $600 million of subprime mortgages, primarily on a flow basis. Freddie Mac, in that same year, purchases $18.6 billion worth of subprime loans, mostly Alt A and A- mortgages. Freddie Mac guarantees another $7.7 billion worth of subprime mortgages in structured transactions.  Fannie Mae commits to purchase and securitize $2 billion of Community Reinvestment Act eligible loans. Fannie Mae announces that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) will soon require it to dedicate 50% of its business to low- and moderate-income families” and its goal is to finance over $500 billion in Community Reinvestment Act related business by 2010.  Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 defines interest rates, currency prices, and stock indexes as “excluded commodities,” allowing trade of credit-default swaps by hedge funds, investment banks or insurance companies with minimal oversight, and contributing to 2008 crisis in Bear Stearns & Co, Lehman Brothers, and AIG.

President: Clinton – Dem        House – Rep    Senate – Rep

 

2000–2001: Early 2000s recession spurs government action to rev up economy. US Federal Reserve lowers Federal funds rate 11 times, from 6.5% (May 2000) to 1.75% (December 2001), creating an easy-credit environment that encouraged less-qualified home buyers and investments in higher yielding subprime mortgages.

President: Clinton – Dem        House – Rep    Senate – Rep

 

2002: Annual home price appreciation of 10% or more in California, Florida, and most Northeastern states. President G.W. Bush sets goal of increasing minority home owners by at least 5.5 million by 2010 through billions of dollars in tax credits, subsidies and a Fannie Mae commitment of $440 billion to establish.

President Bush – Rep              House – Rep    Senate – Dem

 

2003: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy $81 billion in subprime securities.  Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan lowers federal reserve’s key interest rate to 1%, the lowest in 45 years.  Bush administration recommends moving governmental supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under a new agency created within the Department of the Treasury. The changes are blocked by Congress.

President Bush – Rep              House – Rep    Senate – Rep

 

2004: U.S. homeownership rate peaks with an all time high of 69.2 percent.  HUD ratcheted up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac affordable-housing goals for next four years, from 50 percent to 56 percent, stating they lagged behind the private market; they purchased $175 billion in 2004 — 44 percent of the market; from 2004 to 2006, they purchased $434 billion in securities backed by subprime loans.  SEC effectively suspends net capital rule for five firms - Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley. Freed from government imposed limits on the debt they can assume, they levered up 20, 30 and even 40 to 1, buying massive amounts of mortgage-backed securities and other risky investments.

President Bush – Rep              House – Rep    Senate – Rep

 

2005: Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich raises concerns over subprime lending practices.  Over protest of Democrats in U.S. Congress, the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Controller of the Currency allow loosening of Community Reinvestment Act requirements for “small” banks, further cutting back the number of subprime loans offered to borrowers.  Booming housing market halts abruptly; from the fourth quarter of 2005 to the first quarter of 2006, median prices nationwide drop 3.3 percent.

President Bush – Rep              House – Rep    Senate – Rep

 

2006: The subprime lender Ameriquest announces it will cut 3,800 Jobs, close its 229 retail branches and rely instead on the Web. Merit Financial Inc, based in Kirkland, Washington, files for bankruptcy and closes its doors, firing all but 80 of its 410 employees; Merit’s marketplace decline about 40% and sales are not bringing in enough revenue to support overhead. U.S. Home Construction Index is down over 40% as of mid-August 2006 compared to a year earlier.

President Bush – Rep              House – Rep    Senate – Rep

 

2007: Home sales continue to fall. The plunge in existing-home sales is the steepest since 1989. In Q1/2007, S&P/Case-Shiller house price index records first year-over-year decline in nationwide house prices since 1991. The subprime mortgage industry collapses, and a surge of foreclosure activity (twice as bad as 2006) and rising interest rates threaten to depress prices further as problems in the subprime markets spread to the near-prime and prime mortgage markets. Freddie Mac fined $3.8 million by the Federal Election Commission as a result of illegal campaign contributions, much of it to members of the United States House Committee on Financial Services which oversees Freddie Mac.

President Bush announces a limited bailout of U.S. homeowners unable to pay the rising costs of their debts. Several critics argue that the Fed should use regulation and interest rates to prevent asset-price bubbles, blamed former Fed-chairman Alan Greenspan’s low interest rate policies for stoking the U.S. housing boom and subsequent bust, and Yale University economist Robert Shiller warned of possible home price declines of fifty percent.  Federal Reserve adds $31.25 billion in temporary reserves (loans) to the US money markets which has to be repaid in two weeks.  US Labor Department announces that non-farm payrolls fell by 4,000 in August 2007, the first month of negative job growth since August 2003, due in large part to problems in the housing and credit markets.

 

A consortium of U.S. banks backed by the U.S. government announces a “super fund” of $100 billion to purchase mortgage-backed securities whose mark-to-market value plummeted in the subprime collapse. Both Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson express alarm about the dangers posed by the bursting housing bubble; Paulson says “the housing decline is still unfolding and I view it as the most significant risk to our economy. … The longer housing prices remain stagnant or fall, the greater the penalty to our future economic growth.”  Financial Accounting Standards Board “Fair Value Measurements” standards upgrade the quality of financial reporting through greater transparency.  However, this “mark-to-market” accounting may exaggerate the loss in value of an asset, as shown on balance sheets, and trigger a cascade of unnecessary financial losses.  President Bush announces a plan to voluntarily and temporarily freeze the mortgages of a limited number of mortgage debtors holding adjustable rate mortgages (ARM). He also asked Members Of Congress to: 1. pass legislation to modernize the FHA. 2. temporarily reform the tax code to help homeowners refinance during this time of housing market stress. 3. pass funding to support mortgage counseling. 4. pass legislation to reform Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

President – Bush – Rep                       House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

2008: January 2008 stock market downturn.  The National Association of Realtors (NAR) announces that 2007 had the largest drop in existing home sales in 25 years, and “the first price decline in many, many years and possibly going back to the Great Depression.”  The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Connecticut’s Christopher Dodd proposes a housing bailout to the Senate floor that would assist troubled subprime mortgage lenders such as Countrywide Bank, Dodd admitted that he received special treatment, perks, and campaign donations from Countrywide, who regarded Dodd as a “special” customer and a “Friend of Angelo.” Dodd received a $75,000 reduction in mortgage payments from Countrywide. The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Kent Conrad and the head of head of Fannie Mae Jim Johnson also received mortgages on favorable terms due to their association with Countrywide CEO Angelo R. Mozilo.  Ex-Bear Stearns fund managers arrested by the FBI for their allegedly fraudulent role in the subprime mortgage collapse. The managers purportedly misrepresented the fiscal health of their funds to investors publicly while privately withdrawing their own money. Major banks and financial institutions had borrowed and invested heavily in mortgage backed securities and reported losses of approximately $435 billion as of 17 July 2008.

 

President Bush signs into law the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which authorizes the Federal Housing Administration to guarantee up to $300 billion in new 30-year fixed rate mortgages for subprime borrowers if lenders write-down principal loan balances to 90 percent of current appraisal value.  Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which at that point owned or guaranteed about half of the U.S.’s $12 trillion mortgage market, effectively nationalizing them. This causes panic because almost every home mortgage lender and Wall Street bank relied on them to facilitate the mortgage market and investors worldwide owned $5.2 trillion of debt securities backed by them.

 

Merrill Lynch is sold to Bank of America amidst fears of a liquidity crisis and Lehman Brothers collapse. Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy protection.  Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s downgrade ratings on AIG’s credit on concerns over continuing losses to mortgage-backed securities, sending the company into fears of insolvency.  The US Federal Reserve lends $85 billion to American International Group (AIG) to avoid bankruptcy. 

 

September 18: Electronic Run on Money Market Funds - According to Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D) (PA-11), in mid-September of 2008, the United States of America came just three hours away from the collapse of the entire economy. In a span of 2 hours, $550 billion was drawn out of money market accounts in an electronic run on the banks. Rep. Kanjorski: “It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”  Kanjorski’s bombshell begins to detonate at roughly 2:10.  was there when the secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve came those days and talked to members of Congress about what was going on. We don’t even talk about these things. On Thursday, at about 11 o’clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to a tune of $550 billion being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two.  The Treasury opened up its window to help. They pumped $105 billion into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks.  They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts, and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic and there. And that’s what actually happened.  If they had not done that their estimation was that by two o’clock that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.  Now we talked at that time about what would have happened if that happened. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it. It still has not been reported who or what entities began this rush.

 

September 19: Paulson financial rescue plan is unveiled after a volatile week in stock and debt markets.  September 23: The fact that the FBI was looking into the possibility of fraud by mortgage financing companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and insurer American International Group is revealed, bringing to 26 the number of corporate lenders under investigation. September 25: Washington Mutual is seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and its banking assets are sold to JP MorganChase for $1.9 billion.

 

September 29: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is defeated 228-205 in the United States House of Representatives; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announces that Citigroup Inc. would acquire banking operations of Wachovia.  September 30: US Treasury changes tax law to allow a bank acquiring another to write off all of the acquired bank’s losses for tax purposes.

 

October 1: The U.S. Senate passes HR1424, their version of the $700 billion bailout bill.  October 3: President George W. Bush signs the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, creating a $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program to purchase failing bank assets. It contains also easing of the accounting rules that forced companies to collapse because of the existence of toxic mortgage-related investments. Also key to winning GOP support was a decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission to ease mark-to-market accounting rules that require financial institutions to show the deflated value of assets on their balance sheets.”  October 3: Using tax law change made September 30, Wells makes a higher offer for Wachovia, scooping it from Citigroup.

 

October 6-10: Worst week for the stock market in 75 years. The Dow Jones loses 22.1 percent, its worst week on record, down 40.3 percent since reaching a record high of 14,164.53 October 9, 2007. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index loses 18.2 percent, its worst week since 1933, down 42.5 percent in since its own high October 9, 2007.

October 6: Fed announces that it will provide $900 billion in short-term cash loans to banks.

October 7: Fed makes emergency move to lend around $1.3 trillion directly to companies outside the financial sector.  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) relaxes rules on US corporations repatriating money held oversees in an attempt to inject liquidity into the US financial market. The new ruling allows the companies to receive loans from their foreign subsidiaries for longer periods and more times a year without triggering the 35% corporate income tax.

October 8: Central banks in USA (Fed), England, China, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland and the European Central Bank cut rates in a coordinated effort to aid world economy.  Fed also reduces its emergency lending rate to banks by half a percentage point, to 1.75 percent.

 

October 8: White House considers taking ownership stakes in private banks as a part of the bailout bill. Warren Buffett and George Soros criticized the original approach of the bailout bill.

October 11: The Dow Jones Industrial Average caps its worst week ever with its highest volatility day ever recorded in its 112 year history. Over the last eight trading days, the DJIA has dropped 22% amid worries of worsening credit crisis and global recession. Paper losses now on US stocks now total $8.4 trillion from the market highs last year. The G7, a group of central bankers and finance ministers from the Group of Seven leading economies, meet in Washington and agree to urgent and exceptional coordinated action to prevent the credit crisis from throwing the world into depression. The G7 did not agree on the concrete plan that was hoped for.

 

October 14: The US taps into the $700 billion available from the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act and announces the injection of $250 billion of public money into the US banking system. The form of the rescue will include the US government taking an equity position in banks that choose to participate in the program in exchange for certain restrictions such as executive compensation. Nine banks agreed to participate in the program and will receive half of the total funds: 1) Bank of America, 2) JPMorgan Chase, 3) Wells Fargo, 4) Citigroup, 5) Merrill Lynch, 6) Goldman Sachs, 7) Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York Mellon and 9) State Street. Other US financial institutions eligible for the plan have until November 14 to agree to the terms. 

 

October 21: The US Federal Reserve announces that it will spend $540 billion to purchase short-term debt from money market mutual funds. The large amount of redemption requests during the credit crisis have caused the money market funds to scale back lending to banks contributing to the credit freeze on interbank lending markets. This government is hoping the injection will help unfreeze the credit markets making it easier for businesses and banks to obtain loans. The structure of the plan involves the Fed setting up four special purpose vehicles that will purchase the assets. 

 

November 4: Elections

 

November 12: Treasury Secretary Paulson abandons plan to buy toxic assets under the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Mr. Paulson said the remaining $410 billion in the fund would be better spent on recapitalizing financial companies. 

November 15: The group of 20 of the world’s largest economies meets in Washington DC and releases a statement of the meeting. Although no detailed plans were agreed upon, the meeting focused on implementing policies consistent with five principles: strengthening transparency and accountability, improving regulation, promoting market integrity, reinforcing cooperation and reforming international institutions.

November 17: The Treasury gives out $33.6 billion to 21 banks in the second round of disbursements from the $700 billion bailout fund. This payout brings the total to $158.56 billion so far.

November 24: The US government agrees to rescue Citigroup after an attack by investors causes the stock price to plummet 60% over the last week under a detailed plan that including injecting another $20 billion of capital into Citigroup bringing the total infusion to $45 billion.

November 25: The US Federal Reserve pledges $800 billion more to help revive the financial system. $600 billion will be used to buy mortgage bonds issued or guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Banks.

November 28: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the global organization behind the Basel Accord, issues a consultative paper providing supervisory guidance on the valuation of assets. The paper provides ten principles that should be used by banks to value assets at fair market value.

President: Bush – Rep             House – Dem   Senate – Dem

 

December: The Government Accountability Office releases a report that claims that the oversight of the Troubled Assets Relief Program requires additional actions to ensure “integrity, accountability, and transparency”.  Global financial crisis of 2008: the United States Department of Labor reports that nonfarm payrolls contracted by 533,000 in November, the worst monthly job loss since 1974.

Automotive industry crisis of 2008: The White House and U.S. Congress agree on a proposal for a US$15 billion bailout package for three major US automakers.  Global financial crisis of 2008: A proposed $14 billion bailout of U.S. automakers fails in the U.S. Senate, raising the specter of an industry collapse that sent Asian markets reeling and sparked fears it could deepen the recession.  The United States consumer price index fell in November by 1.9% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Labor Department reports, the biggest decline since the nadir of the Great Depression in January 1932.  Construction permits for single-family homes fell in October by 12.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 412,000, marking a 27-year low, the U.S. Commerce Department reports.  President Bush announces a $17.4 billion emergency bailout of the automobile industry to protect General Motors and Chrysler from bankruptcy during the current automotive crisis. The plan is conditional on the companies’ reorganization by March 31, 2009, to show that they can return to viability. 

 

2009: January: The United States Congressional Budget Office estimates that the federal government will run a record $1.2 trillion budget deficit in fiscal year 2009, that the current recession will last well into this year, and that the enactment of an economic-stimulus plan would increase that deficit.  United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Philadelphia Fed Bank President Charles Plosser differ publicly on stabilizing the economy.  U.S. retail sales plunged a seasonally adjusted 2.7 percent in December 2008 from November, the Commerce Department estimates.  European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet says that global economic growth in 2009 will be “substantially below” December 2008 forecasts. Her Majesty’s Government confirms a £300-billion bailout package for the United Kingdom’s banking industry. Banking shares in the United Kingdom plummet as the Royal Bank of Scotland posts the biggest loss in British history.  Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th and first African-American President of the United States.  General Motors receives a second loan installment of US$5.4 billion.  The United States House of Representatives passes the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 

 

February: The United States Treasury moves to broaden its debt ranging options to raise the trillions of dollars needed to cope with the current recession.  The Bank of England reduces the base rate of interest to a new historic low of 1%. The number of Americans applying for first-time unemployment benefits reaches its highest level since October 1982.  U.S. President Barack Obama creates the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.  The U.S. economy lost 598,000 jobs during January 2009, with unemployment rising to 7.6 percent.  Canada’s economy lost 129,000 jobs during January 2009, an all-time record, with unemployment rising to 7.2 percent. Bankruptcies in the United Kingdom rose during 2008 by 50 percent to an all-time high.  California’s Alliance Bank and Georgia’s FirstBank are closed, raising the number of 2009 U.S. bank failures to eight.  The United States Senate approves the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  The budget deficit reached US$84 billion in January 2009, due to the financial crisis.  The Senate and House of Representatives reach a compromise on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  The United States Congress approves the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  U.S. President Obama signs the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in Denver, Colorado.  General Motors and Chrysler inform the U.S. federal government that they will need additional loans of $21.6 billion.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 fall to their lowest levels since 1997.  The U.S. gross domestic product fell 6.2% in the final fiscal quarter of 2008.

 

March: Consumer spending in the U.S. rose in January after six successive monthly declines.

American International Group announces a loss of US$61.7 billion for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2008. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls below 7,000 for the first time since 1997.  The United States Senate passes a US$410-billion omnibus spending bill.

 

President: Obama – Dem        House – Dem   Senate - Dem

2010 Legislation Pending

 

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932009

4 Comments »

1. What? No comments? They don’t really buy the beer; they just rent it.

   Comment by Ken_P — June 5, 2009 @ 11:28 pm

2. This is fantastic.
   Thanks so much!

   Comment by L D LaPlue — October 30, 2009 @ 11:34 pm

3. President Clinton was elected in 1992 but did not take office until January 1993…Either you are mis-informed as to the when the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 or who was still president in 1992. I do know that President GHWBush was President until Bill Clinton was inaugurated in Jan 1993. Please correct that error or correct me.

   Comment by Harley Spoon — January 29, 2010 @ 5:47 pm

4. Mr Spoon is correct. GHW Bush was President in 1992 when the Democrate controlled House and Senate crafted the FHEFSSA after which the Clinton administration applied increased pressure through Freddie & Fannie to lending institutions to offer higher percentages of loans to preveously unqualified individuals. See also: The Real Cause of the Current Financial Crisis at: http://www.opednews.com/populum/print_friendly.php?p=The-Real-Cause-of-the-Curr-by-Joe-Reeser-080926-83.html

   Comment by John Frisby — February 1, 2010 @ 9:43 pm

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