Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse

II. BACKGROUND

Understanding the recent financial crisis requires examining how U.S. financial markets have changed in fundamental ways over the past 15 years. The following provides a brief historical overview of some of those changes; explains some of the new financial products and trading strategies in the mortgage area; and provides background on credit ratings, investment banks, government sponsored enterprises, and financial regulators. It also provides a brief timeline of key events in the financial crisis. Two recurrent themes are the increasing amount of risk and conflicts of interest in U.S. financial markets.


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C. Recommendations A. Rise of Too-Big-To-Fail U.S. Financial Institutions


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