2008 financial crisis

Worldwide economic crisis

A major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States took place in 2008. The immediate cause of the crisis was the collapse of the 2000s U.S. housing bubble, which involved excessive speculation in property values by both homeowners and financial institutions, exacerbated by predatory lending and by deficiencies in regulation. The first phase was the subprime mortgage crisis, which began in early 2007 as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value.

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