After September 11

1. 2004September 17, 2004Wall Street & Banking

   FBI: mortgage fraud has the potential to be an epidemic

   As much impact as the S&L crisis, which produced more than 800 convictions.

   Source: FBI warns of mortgage fraud 'epidemic'Read the full story →
2. 2005April 20, 2005Wall Street & Banking

   Bankruptcy law tightened at the card industry's request

   A means test, and private student loans made nondischargeable.

   Source: S. 256, Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, Public Law 109-8Read the full story →
3. 2008September 15, 2008Wall Street & Banking

   Lehman Brothers allowed to fail

   Payments between banks stopped. Two days later the same officials rescued AIG with more than $180 billion and paid its counterparties in full.

   Source: Money, Power and Wall Street, Part TwoRead the full story →
4. October 13, 2008Wall Street & Banking

   Nine bank chief executives given $125 billion in public capital at a single meeting

   No mortgage modifications, pay limits, bonus limits, or regulatory changes were required. The chairman of Wells Fargo said he did not want the money and was told his bank would be declared capital-deficient if he refused.

   Source: Money, Power and Wall Street, Part TwoRead the full story →
5. 2009May 7, 2009Wall Street & Banking

   Stress tests find the 19 largest banks sound

   The financial sector returned to profitability soon after. It was one of the few sectors that did, and the bailouts became a source of public anger from both the left and the right.

   Source: Money, Power and Wall Street, Part ThreeRead the full story →
6. July 24, 2009Wall Street & Banking

   Federal minimum wage set at $7.25, where it remains

   Prices have risen 55 percent since.

   Source: History of Changes to the Minimum Wage LawRead the full story →
7. 2010July 21, 2010Wall Street & Banking

   Dodd-Frank signed with a promise of no more taxpayer bailouts

   Proposals to break up the largest banks had been removed from the bill. The financial industry then spent more than $320 million lobbying on the rules, and the Volcker Rule grew from 10 pages to nearly 300.

   Source: Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, H.R.4173, 111th Congress (2010)Read the full story →
8. December 1, 2010Wall Street & Banking

   Under a new law, the Fed posts 21,000 emergency transactions and says it lost nothing

   It reported $19.9 billion earned on the broad programs.

   Source: Federal Reserve releases detailed information about transactions conducted to stabilize markets during the financial crisisRead the full story →
9. 2011January 27, 2011Wall Street & Banking

   Crisis commission: the crisis was avoidable; lenders knew borrowers could not pay

   A systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics.

   Source: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report: Conclusions of the Financial Crisis Inquiry CommissionRead the full story →
10. March 21, 2011Wall Street & Banking

    Supreme Court lets stand the order making the Fed name the banks it lent to

    The borrowers had been secret since 2008.

    Source: Order List denying certiorari, No. 10-543, Clearing House Assn. v. BloombergRead the full story →
11. July 21, 2011Wall Street & Banking

    GAO audit: $16.1 trillion in emergency loans counting every rollover, $1.14 trillion adjusted for term

    The largest users were the largest banks.

    Source: Federal Reserve System: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Policies and Processes for Managing Emergency Assistance (GAO-11-696)Read the full story →
12. October 19, 2011Wall Street & Banking

    Second audit: the New York Fed's chairman held Goldman stock while it became a bank the Fed regulates

    He resigned in May 2009 after buying more.

    Source: Federal Reserve Bank Governance: Opportunities Exist to Broaden Director Recruitment Efforts and Increase Transparency (GAO-12-18)Read the full story →
13. November 2011Wall Street & Banking

    Jefferson County, Alabama files the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history

    The county had entered interest rate swaps with JP Morgan on $3 billion of sewer debt. Federal prosecutors found $3 million in payments routed through a local adviser. JP Morgan settled with the SEC for $25 million and was ordered to forgive $697 million in fees.

    Source: Money, Power and Wall Street, Part FourRead the full story →
14. 2012January 25, 2012Wall Street & Banking

    Federal Reserve adopts 2 percent inflation as its goal

    A policy that the dollar lose half its value every 35 years.

    Source: Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy StrategyRead the full story →
15. December 11, 2012Wall Street & Banking

    HSBC admits laundering for cartels and pays $1.92 billion; no charge

    Breuer: you look at the collateral consequences.

    Source: U.S. Officials Hope HSBC Penalty Sends A MessageRead the full story →

Stories (6)

• 1994 to 2011How Credit Default Swaps and Deregulation Caused the 2008 Financial CrisisIn June 1994 a group of young JP Morgan bankers at a resort in Boca Raton worked out how to sell the risk of a loan separately from the loan. The idea was meant to make banking safer. It let banks hold less capital, it was kept out of regulation by Congress and the Federal Reserve, and applied to mortgages it produced the machine that failed in 2008 and cost Americans $11 trillion.Wall Street & Banking
• March to October 2008The October 2008 Bank Bailout: $125 Billion Handed to Nine Wall Street Banks with No Strings AttachedIn 2008 the government rescued Bear Stearns, let Lehman Brothers fail, then rescued AIG and paid the banks' claims against it in full. On October 13 the heads of the nine largest banks were called to the Treasury, handed $125 billion, and told they could not leave until they signed. The terms required nothing of them.Wall Street & Banking
• November 2008 to July 2010Obama, Timothy Geithner, and the 2009 Decision Not to Break Up the Big BanksIn 2009 President Obama had to choose between breaking up the banks that caused the crisis and nursing them back to health. He chose Timothy Geithner's plan. On March 27 he told thirteen bank chief executives he was all that stood between them and the pitchforks, then offered to help. Records later pried loose by Bloomberg showed the banks had borrowed $1.2 trillion from the Federal Reserve in a single day.Wall Street & Banking
• July 21, 2010The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and Its 2018 RollbackOn July 21, 2010 the president signed the 848 page Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and said there would be no more tax funded bailouts, period. The law created a consumer bureau, a council to watch the largest firms, and a way to wind one down. It did not break up the banks, its rules were written under lobbying, and in 2018 Congress raised the threshold for close oversight from $50 billion to $250 billion.Wall Street & Banking
• 2007 to 2015The 2011 GAO Audit of the Federal Reserve: $16.1 Trillion in Rollover Loans to Wall Street and Foreign BanksIn 2010 Congress ordered the first outside audit of the emergency lending the Federal Reserve did during the 2008 crisis. The Government Accountability Office reported in July 2011 that the loans across the broad programs added up to $16.1 trillion, and the office explained in the same report that this number sums a loan every time it was rolled over, so an overnight loan renewed for a month counts thirty times; adjusted for how long the money was actually out, the figure was $1.14 trillion. The largest users were the biggest banks, and more than half the money in two programs went to the American arms of foreign banks. The public learned the borrowers' names only after a news agency won a Freedom of Information Act suit and a new law forced the release of 21,000 transactions. A second audit found that the chairman of the New York Fed sat on its board while he held and bought stock in Goldman Sachs as it became a bank the Fed regulates. The Fed says it lost nothing and earned about $20 billion on the programs.Wall Street & Banking
• 1996 to 2012How Wall Street Sold Toxic Derivatives to Cities, Counties, and European GovernmentsAfter 2008 the banks kept paying themselves. Part four of FRONTLINE's series follows the derivatives business out of New York and into the places that bought what it sold: a town outside Rome, Jefferson County, Alabama, which went bankrupt after JP Morgan's banker paid bribes, and Greece, whose books Goldman Sachs helped dress for the eurozone. Bad swaps cost American taxpayers $20 billion in five years.Wall Street & Banking