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What caused the 2008 financial crisis?
Universal Encyclopedia

What caused the 2008 financial crisis?

From subprime defaults to the fall of Lehman Brothers — how a mortgage crisis born in America became a global recession in 2008.

The short answer

In 2008, the money stopped believing — in the mortgages, in the banks, in itself. Defaults on American subprime mortgages, cascading through 2007 and 2008, did not merely topple banks: they revealed the pillars of the global financial system as scaffolding — and when they fell, they fell together.

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From subprime defaults to the fall of Lehman Brothers — how a mortgage crisis born in America became a global recession in 2008.…

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