The 2008 financial crisis was a decade ago… what's next?
Ten years ago, Lehman Brothers -- a global financial services firm -- collapsed, helping spark the 2008 financial crisis.
"It was the moment when the financial crisis fully burst upon us, when panic seized the markets," Phil Angelides, former chair of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission told CNN.
The demise of the Lehman Brothers and the following Great Recession were triggered in part by financial trickery that put the big banks first and consumers last -- and why we created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as our watchdog on Wall Street.
Since the Consumer Bureau was created in 2011, it has taken more than 180 legal actions against payday lenders, student loan servicers, Wells Fargo and more; it has processed more than 1 million consumer complaints; and it has returned $12 billion to more than 26 million Americans wronged by financial companies.
That’s why it’s important to remember this anniversary: We need to remember why we need a watchdog on Wall Street to make sure that banks and other financial institutions play by the rules -- and to hold them accountable when they don’t.
Add your name to speak up for our watchdog keeping Wall Street in check today.
For us, and others like us, the Lehman Brothers collapse isn’t really when we felt the financial crisis. But we sure felt it later, like most Americans.
We cannot afford another financial crisis. That’s why we're committed to defending the Consumer Bureau and calling on its current leadership to make sure it lives up to its mission.