2006 to 2025, in seven parts. The loans, the bonds they were turned into, how it reached Britain, the weekend Lehman went, the banks the state bought, the recession, and what came back.
7 modules · about 75 minutes
See the decisions you have taken
Leave an address and you will hear as each module goes up.
Nothing is charged now and no card is asked for. Your address joins the Ceteris email list. You can leave at any time, and it is never passed on.
Modules are written to be read in order: each one opens on the question the last one closed with. Start wherever you like.
1 The 2008 Financial Crisis American house prices had never fallen across the whole country. The loans of the 2000s were written against that, and in July 2006 prices started to fall. 6 steps · 9 min · Free Done 2 How a Bad Loan Became a Safe Bond A pool of bad American mortgages was turned into paper that counted as safe. Who certified it, what it cost when it was not, and how the firms holding it were funded. 8 steps · 12 min · Free Done 3 How the Crisis Reached Britain Why an American mortgage problem became a British banking problem, the funding gap that carried it across, and the first run on a British bank since 1866. 6 steps · 9 min · Free Done 4 The Lehman Weekend Two rescues in six months taught the market that a big firm out of money would be lent to or taken over. Then one was not. The weekend of 13 and 14 September 2008, and everything that had to be rescued instead. 9 steps · 14 min · Free Done 5 Britain Buys the Banks 8 October 2008. Britain put public money into its banks as shares rather than as loans, took 84% of RBS, and froze an Icelandic bank under anti-terrorism law the same morning. 8 steps · 12 min · Free Done 6 The Recession and What Happened to Pay 2008 to 2014. Lending to companies contracted, output fell for five quarters, and Britain lost far fewer jobs than America by taking the hit out of pay instead. 7 steps · 10 min · Free Done 7 Getting the Money Back May 2017 to 30 May 2025. Lloyds sold, NatWest sold seventeen years after the rescue, the Icelandic money recovered, and what the whole thing cost in the end. 7 steps · 10 min · Free DoneCountry data from the World Bank (CC BY 4.0) and the UNDP Human Development Report (CC BY 3.0 IGO)
Games · Learn · Atlas · Privacy