Question: What did Nassim Nicholas Taleb warn about for years prior to the financial crisis of 2007?
Answer: the breakdown of the banking system

Question: What did Nassim Nicholas Taleb make a fortune on by making a big financial bet?
Answer: banking stocks

Question: Who is the market strategist that believes distinctions exist between the current crisis and the Great Depression?
Answer: Phil Dow

Question: How much did the Dow Jones average fall during a period of 17 months?
Answer: 50%

Question: What was the percentage the Dow Jones fell in the Great Depression?
Answer: 54.7%

Question: Who was the chief financial correspondent of The New York Times in March 2009?
Answer: Floyd Norris

Question: Which medium sized British bank was the first victim of the financial crisis?
Answer: Northern Rock

Question: Who did Northern Rock request security from?
Answer: Bank of England

Question: When did Northern Rock investors panic and a bank run begin?
Answer: September 2007

Question: When was Northern Rock taken into public hands?
Answer: February 2008

Question: Which bank early problems in 2007 were an indicator of the troubles that would soon befall other banks and financial institutions?
Answer: Northern Rock

Question: IndyMac often made loans without verifying what?
Answer: the borrower’s income

Question: What was questionable on IndyMac's underlying collateral?
Answer: Appraisals

Question: IndyMac gave loans to borrower's with what type credit histories?
Answer: poor

Question: IndyMac offered this type of questionable loans to borrowers?
Answer: risky

Question: IndyMac resisted efforts by regulators to tighten this criteria of their loans?
Answer: issuing criteria

Question: How many of the poorest families did not have any wealth decline during the financial crisis?
Answer: half

Question: In a Federal Reserve survey of 4,000 households, what percent reported wealth decline between 2007 and 2009?
Answer: 63

Question: How many of the richest families had a decrease in total wealth between 2007 and 2009?
Answer: 77

Question: How many families at the bottom of the pyramid had a decrease in total wealth between 2007 and 2009?
Answer: 50

Question: Which families experienced the least decline in wealth between 2007 and 2009?
Answer: poorest families

Question: On November 3, 2008, who predicted extremely weak GDP growth for the Eurozone in 2009?
Answer: European Commission at Brussels

Question: How much did the European Commission estimate the GDP growth for Eurozone countries would be in 2009?
Answer: 0.1%

Question: How much did the European Commission estimate the GDP growth for the UK would be in 2009?
Answer: −1.0%

Question: On November 6, in Washington, D.C., who predicted a worldwide recession for 2009?
Answer: the IMF

Question: On November 5, 2008, the Bank of England reduced their interest rate from 4.5% to what?
Answer: 3%

Question: What have central banks around the world done to avoid the risk of a deflationary spiral?
Answer: expand money supplies

Question: What have governments done to offset the reduction in private sector demand?
Answer: enacted large fiscal stimulus packages

Question: What is the U.S. Federal Reserve's traditional role during a crisis?
Answer: lender-of-last-resort

Question: What did the U.S. Federal Reserve do to increase access to liquidity?
Answer: expanded liquidity facilities

Question: What type decline does lower wages and higher unemployment lead to?
Answer: self-reinforcing decline

Question: What brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse?
Answer: credit freeze

Question: How much government debt and troubled private assets did central banks purchase during the last quarter of 2008?
Answer: US$2.5 trillion

Question: How much preferred stock did governments of European nations and the USA purchase in their major banks?
Answer: $1.5 trillion

Question: In October 2010, who was the Nobel laureate that explained how the U.S. Federal Reserve was creating currency to combat the liquidity trap?
Answer: Joseph Stiglitz

Question: What did the banks chose to do with the money created by the Federal Reserve instead of financing more domestic loans and refinancing mortgages?
Answer: investing internationally in emerging markets

Question: What was introduced by President Barack Obama in June 2009?
Answer: a series of regulatory proposals

Question: What was one of the items important to consumers that was addressed by the new regulatory proposals introduced in June 2009?
Answer: consumer protection

Question: Regulations were proposed by Obama in January 2010 to limit the ability of banks to engage in which type trading?
Answer: proprietary

Question: Who were proposed new regulations called "The Volcker Rule" named after?
Answer: Paul Volcker

Question: Who publicly argued for changes limiting the ability of banks to engage in proprietary trading?
Answer: Paul Volcker

Question: When did the U.S. Senate first pass a financial reform bill?
Answer: May 2010

Question: When did the U.S. House first pass a financial reform bill?
Answer: December 2009

Question: What rule against proprietary trading was not part of legislation passed by either the Senate or House?
Answer: Volcker Rule

Question: Which bill gave regulators the discretion to prohibit proprietary trades?
Answer: Senate

Question: What action in 2007 by national governments prevented the collapse of large financial institutions?
Answer: bailout of banks

Question: How much estimated consumer wealth was lost as a result of the financial crisis of 2007?
Answer: trillions of U.S. dollars

Question: What is the date the active phase of the financial crisis began as a liquidity crisis?
Answer: August 9, 2007

Question: What year did the global recession that followed the financial crisis of 2007 end?
Answer: 2012

Question: What was the name of the company that terminated withdrawals from three hedge funds in 2007 citing a liquidity crisis?
Answer: BNP Paribas

Question: What year did the U.S. housing bubble peak?
Answer: 2004

Question: What year did Congress pass the American Recover and Reinvestment Act?
Answer: 2009

Question: Overvaluation of bundled subprime mortgages was based on the theory that housing prices would continue to do this?
Answer: escalate

Question: One of the causes of the financial crisis was easier access to loans by this type borrower?
Answer: subprime

Question: In 2007, banks and insurance companies did not have adequate holdings of which type to back their financial commitments?
Answer: capital

Question: What is the name of the U.S. Senate report giving their conclusions for the cause of the crisis?
Answer: Levin–Coburn Report

Question: Which act was repealed in 1999 effectively removing the separation between investment and deposit banks?
Answer: Glass-Steagall Act

Question: What is the name of the commission who concluded the financial crisis was avoidable?
Answer: Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

Question: What agency failed to accurately price risk involved in mortgage-related financial products?
Answer: credit rating agencies

Question: What practices should have been adjusted by governments to address 21st-century financial markets?
Answer: regulatory

Question: What are MBS as related to the housing and credit booms?
Answer: mortgage-backed securities

Question: What are CDO as related to the housing and credit booms?
Answer: collateralized debt obligations

Question: When housing prices declined, who reported significant losses from being heavily invested in subprime MBS?
Answer: major global financial institutions

Question: Who could invest in the U.S. housing market through MBS and CDO?
Answer: institutions and investors around the world

Question: MBS and CDO derive their value from?
Answer: mortgage payments and housing prices

Question: How much are total losses estimated to be from falling home prices?
Answer: trillions of U.S. dollars