2008: What Really Happened

Over 15 years after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, the American public still lacks a clear understanding of what caused the housing bubble that led to the most serious panic since the Great Depression.

Many have pointed to deregulation, but have failed to show how a gradual trend of deregulation could have caused either the sudden spurt in housing prices that triggered the bubble or the discrete turning points thereafter. Others have pointed fingers at the Fed, but have yet to explain why the bubble began prior to the Fed’s “easy money” policies or why prior periods of easy money didn’t also lead to housing bubbles. Still others have blamed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but have failed to explain why so much of the financing that fueled the bubble also came from major commercial and investment banks.

In 2008: What Really Happened, Todd Sheets presents comprehensive original research that unravels these apparent contradictions and shows what spawned the housing bubble, why it grew to such dangerous proportions, and how this created the potential for a panic. He then details the missteps that triggered the panic, the factors that caused the financial markets to seize up, and the specific responses that finally returned the markets to equilibrium. In addition to debunking numerous myths, Sheets also exposes the history behind the people and institutions that drove these events and sets forth measures to help investors, executives, directors, regulators, and policy makers avoid repeating the mistakes that led to the worst financial crisis in nearly a century.