Major Players in the 2008 Financial Crisis: Where Are They Now?

Check out among the principal gamers in the course of the 2008 monetary disaster and ensuing meltdown to learn the way they fared within the years following the disaster. Assessment what these key gamers had been doing because the monetary markets succumbed to chaos and what they’re doing now.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

Over the last yr of the Bush administration, Henry “Hank” Paulson had a major impression on financial coverage. He was CEO at Goldman Sachs earlier than his stint on the Treasury Division, which began in 2006. Certainly one of his well-known choices as secretary was to let Lehman Brothers fail, precipitating a inventory market drop of practically 5 %. In his zeal to not repeat that mistake, he helped push the financial institution bailout by Congress.

In 2010, Paulson revealed the e-book Brink, chronicling his experiences and observations in the course of the monetary disaster.

In 2011, Paulson based the Paulson Institute, a middle primarily based on the College of Chicago that focuses on environmental and financial insurance policies in america and China. He’s the chair of the institute and co-chair of the Dangerous Enterprise Venture, which explores the financial impacts of local weather change.

Paulson was featured within the 2018 HBO documentary Panic: The Untold Story of the Monetary Disaster.

Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke

On the helm of the nation’s main financial policy-making physique in the course of the monetary disaster, Bernanke was the face of quantitative easing. This coverage concerned decreasing rates of interest and injecting more cash into the financial system to encourage banks to lend and shoppers to spend. Whereas many politicians and economists had been fearful quantitative easing would spur inflation and new asset bubbles. Some economists, together with Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, laud Bernanke’s efforts and even insist that he helped rein within the disaster, stopping a fair greater monetary disaster.

Bernanke was a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2002-2005 and served as Fed chairman from 2006-2014 when he was succeeded by Janet Yellen.

Immediately, Bernanke is a distinguished fellow on the Brookings Establishment and often blogs and offers evaluation and commentary on financial coverage. In 2015, Bernanke revealed a e-book, The Braveness to Act, describing his experiences in the course of the monetary disaster. He grew to become a member of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences in 2021.

Bernanke revealed one other e-book in 2022, twenty first Century Financial Coverage: The Federal Reserve from the Nice Inflation to COVID-19, detailing the financial coverage instruments utilized by the Federal Reserve to maintain the monetary system from collapsing in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic and its financial aftermath.

N.Y. Fed Chair Timothy Geithner

When Lehman collapsed, Geithner was accountable for probably the most highly effective department of the Federal Reserve. A number of months later, he grew to become Treasury Secretary below President Barack Obama. On one hand, Wall Road decried him as somebody who over-regulated. However, progressive activists considered him as a device of the banks. Throughout his time at Treasury, Geithner was additionally concerned in controversy over his failure to completely report and pay earnings tax from 2001 to 2004. Geithner apologized for the error and paid the IRS his excellent debt.

Now president of Warburg Pincus, a non-public fairness agency that runs “loans by mail” outfit Mariner Finance that makes cash from short-term, high-interest loans.

Since 2014, Geithner has been the managing director of the non-public fairness agency Warburg Pincus. He often lectures at Yale College’s college of administration and chairs the advisory board f of the Yale Program on Monetary Stability.

Geithner has revealed two books, Stress Take a look at: Reflections on Monetary Crises (2014) and Firefighting: The Monetary Disaster (2019).

Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld

Because the final CEO of Lehman Brothers, Richard “Dick” Fuld’s title was synonymous with the monetary disaster. He steered Lehman into subprime mortgages and made the funding financial institution one of many leaders in packaging the debt into bonds that had been then offered to traders. Whereas different banks had been bailed out, Lehman was allowed to fail regardless of Fuld’s pleas to policymakers.

Fuld claims he by no means acquired a golden parachute at his exit from Lehman, however he did make greater than $466 million throughout his tenure. Immediately, Fuld maintains a low-key public profile, however he’s the pinnacle of Matrix Personal Capital Group, a high-end wealth administration agency he helped present in 2016. In 2022, Fuld joined Oasis Professional Markets as a strategic advisor.

Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack

After Lehman Brothers collapsed, Mack feared Morgan Stanley can be subsequent, and he fought with Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner to safe a bailout whereas attempting to get financing from traders in Japan and China. Ultimately, he stood as much as the policymakers, and Morgan Stanley was allowed to grow to be a banking holding firm, opening the best way for elevated liquidity and the chance to be a part of the bailout.

Mack stepped down as CEO in 2010 and, in 2012, relinquished his place as chair of the board. Just lately, Mack has been concerned as a board member with fin-tech firms akin to LendingClub and Lantern Credit score, the place he’s chair of the board. He additionally serves as a senior advisor to the non-public fairness agency KKR. In 2022, Mack revealed his memoirs, Up Shut and All In, discussing his life and methods as a top-level finance government on Wall Road.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein

One other funding financial institution that participated in packaging poisonous mortgage debt into securities, Goldman Sachs, led by Lloyd Blankfein, was allowed to transform to a banking holding firm and acquired $10 billion in authorities funds, which it will definitely repaid. In 2009, Blankfein even apologized for the agency’s function within the meltdown.

Blankfein is without doubt one of the few gamers within the disaster who retained his place. Blankfein served as CEO of Goldman from 2006-2018; in 2019, he grew to become senior chairman of the board.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon

Below the management of Dimon, JPMorgan purchased Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual in an try and stem the rising tide of financial instability. JPMorgan Chase took thousands and thousands from the Fed’s TARP program. Nonetheless, in later years Dimon insisted that the corporate did not want it, and so they solely agreed to maneuver ahead below duress from policymakers.

Like Blankfein, Dimon has managed to carry onto the reins of his firm. In actual fact, after coping with authorized points arising from crisis-era purchases, JPMorgan is doing fairly effectively. Dimon remains to be the CEO. In 2022, Dimon was awarded the Legion d’Honneur, the nation’s highest benefit award for increasing operations in France.

Financial institution of America CEO Ken Lewis

Shortly after claiming Financial institution of America wasn’t focused on main acquisitions, Lewis presided over its crisis-era takeovers of Countrywide Monetary and Merrill Lynch. Within the following months, Lewis was remodeled from one of many saviors of the disaster—even receiving Banker of the Yr in 2008—into certainly one of its villains. Financial institution of America virtually buckled below the load of losses from the acquisitions, and Lewis himself was investigated for the strategies used to realize approval for the Merrill Lynch deal.

Immediately, Lewis is basically out of the general public eye. He agreed to pay $10 million to settle an investigation by the State of New York and even needed to promote certainly one of his multi-million greenback properties. Nonetheless, Lewis nonetheless has sufficient left over to endow a chair at his alma mater, Georgia State College.

President of S&P Kathleen Corbet

Whereas different ranking companies adopted related practices to Normal & Poor’s within the run-up to the disaster, Corbet was probably the most high-profile of the company leaders. Time Journal named her one of many prime 25 folks in charge for the monetary disaster. Critics contend that Normal & Poor’s had a battle of curiosity in taking fee from firms to price the riskiness of their merchandise.

Though she left Normal & Poor’s in shame—and the corporate later needed to pay a $1.5 billion wonderful to the U.S. authorities—Corbet has continued to serve on boards of assorted firms. At present, she is the principal of Cross Ridge Capital, a agency she established in 2008, and a director of MassMutual. She additionally continues to seek the advice of within the fintech sector.

President George W. Bush

It is debatable how a lot energy a president has over the financial system and the markets. Nonetheless, the truth that Bush was president in the course of the lead-up to the monetary disaster and the Nice Recession makes him a serious participant. The tax cuts and deficit spending favored by his administration did not assist the nation’s scenario. There’s a case to be made, although, that lots of the financial issues resulting in the monetary disaster started throughout earlier administrations, and former president Invoice Clinton’s determination to signal a repeal of the Glass-Steagall laws, which separated industrial and funding banking, additionally contributed.

Immediately, Bush retains a low profile, primarily resurfacing for high-profile public occasions like Senator John McCain’s funeral. He spends a lot of his time at his house in Texas, refining his portray expertise.