M. Spencer Green/The Associated Press
The summer of 2008 came to a close amid troubling signs of economic turmoil: U.S. home prices had tumbled, job losses were mounting and Wall Street institutions appeared poised to crumble. On Sept. 15, 2008, investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and fears of widespread contagion from the credit crisis began to take hold.
A decade later, The Globe and Mail looks back at the crisis that was, the state of today’s economy and what the future may hold.
Front page of The Globe and Mail on Sept. 16, 2008.The Globe and Mail
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From the archives: How The Globe covered the financial crisis
Selected front pages from Report on Business and The Globe and Mail during the autumn of 2008, when the worst of the financial crisis was unfolding
Mary Altaffer/The Associated Press
Nightmare on Wall Street: Gord Nixon and other insiders recall Lehman’s sudden collapse
Report on Business magazine talks to the then-CEO of Royal Bank of Canada, along with others who were on the front lines in the fall of 2008. “At the Bank of Canada, we were on high alert,” says Carolyn Wilkins, now senior deputy governor at the central bank. “It was one of those moments when you know you need to consider operations you never would’ve considered before.”
Simon Newman
A decade on, and the banking bailouts still fuel the rise of global populism
In the thick of the crisis, writes Eric Reguly, governments pretty much everywhere had to make a choice: Protect the rich, that is, the bankers, their big-name clients and investors, or let them sink. The first option won out, and the sense of unfairness lingers today.
Mark Lennihan/The Associated Press
A decade after the 2008 crash, we’re repeating its mistakes
Doug Saunders remembers watching Lehman Brothers staff members file into the streets of Madrid, suddenly jobless. A decade on, he asks whether underlying themes that still exist pose a threat to the current global economy.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
The crisis 10 years on: Look back in anger and ahead in anguish as Trump threatens to ruin Canada
It’s an ugly anniversary, writes Michael Babad, with the collapse of Lehman Bros. and the financial crisis not-so-distant a memory for a world now at war. These are trade wars sparked by President Donald Trump, who came to power promising to fix an America broken by trade imbalances, among other things.