:This article is about the details of the severe credit, banking, currency, and trade crisis which emerged in September 2008. For background financial market events dating from July, 2007 chronicling the credit crisis which resulted from the subprime mortgage crisis, see financial crisis of 2007?2008. For an overview of all economic problems of 2008 see economic crisis of 2008.

The global financial crisis of 2008 is a major financial crisis, the worst of its kind since the Great Depression, which is ongoing as of December 2008. It became prominently visible in September 2008 with the failure, merger or conservatorship of several large United States-based financial firms. The underlying causes leading to the crisis had been reported in business journals for many months before September, with commentary about the financial stability of leading U.S. and European investment banks, insurance firms and mortgage banks consequent to the subprime mortgage crisis.

Beginning with failures of large financial institutions in the United States, it rapidly evolved into a global crisis resulting in a number of European bank failures and declines in various stock indexes, and large reductions in the market value of equities (stock) and commodities worldwide. The crisis has led to a liquidity problem and the de-leveraging of financial institutions especially in the United States and Europe, which further accelerated the liquidity crisis. World political leaders and national ministers of finance and central bank directors have coordinated their efforts to reduce fears but the crisis is ongoing and continues to change, evolving at the close of October into a currency crisis with investors transferring vast capital resources into stronger currencies such as the yen, the dollar and the Swiss franc, leading many emergent economies to seek aid from the International Monetary Fund. The crisis was triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis and is an acute phase of the financial crisis of 2007?2008.

:This article is about economic issues beyond the financial market. For the financial market events, see Financial crisis of 2007-2008. For stock market crashes and bank bailouts, see Global financial crisis of 2008.

In 2008, an economic depression was suggested by several important indicators of economic downturn.[http://www.foldvary.net/works/dep08.pdf] These included high oil prices, which led to both the drastic high food prices (due to a dependence of food produc...

In financial markets, Black Monday refers to Monday, October 19, 1987, when stock markets around the world crashed, shedding a huge value in a very short period. The crash began in Hong Kong, spread west through international time zones to Europe, hitting the United States after other markets had already declined by a significant margin. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped by 508 points to 1739 (22.6%).

By the end of October, stock markets in Hong Kong had fallen 45.8%, Australia 41.8...

October 15, 1979, is referred to as Black Monday in Malta. The offices and printing rooms of Progress Press, publisher of The Times of Malta, were ransacked and set on fire during a spontaneous political rally by Labour Party supporters following allegations of a failed attempt on Prime Minister Dom Mintoff's life in his offices at the Auberge de Castille, Valletta. The allegations have never been proven, and are generally believed to be unfounded.

The New Deal was the name that United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a series of economic programs he initiated between 1933 and 1936 with the goal of giving work (relief) to the unemployed, reform of business and financial practices, and recovery of the economy during The Great Depression.

The "First New Deal" of 1933 was aimed at short-term recovery programs for all groups. The Roosevelt administration promoted or implemented banking reform laws, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, agricultural programs, and industrial reform (the NRA), a federal welfare state, as well as the end of the gold standard and prohibition.

A "Second New Deal" (1935?36) included labor union support, the WPA relief program, the Social Security Act, and programs to aid farmers, including tenant farmers and migrant workers. The Supreme Court ruled several programs unconstitutional; however, most were soon replaced, with the exception of the NRA. In practice the New Deal ended with World War II. As Roosevelt himself said in December, 1943, "Dr. New Deal" had given way to "Dr. Win the War."

Most of the relief programs were shut down during World War II by the Conservative Coalition (i.e. the opponents of the New Deal in Congress). Many regulations were ended during the wave of deregulation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Several New Deal programs remain active, with some still operating under the original names, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The largest programs still in existence today are the Social Security System and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The New Deal represented a significant shift in political and domestic policy in the U.S., with its more lasting changes being increased federal government control over the economy and money supply, intervention to control prices and agricultural production. This was the beginning of complex social programs and wider acceptance of trade unions. The effects of the New Deal still remain a source of controversy and debate among economists and historians.

The initial Wall Street Crash of the U.S. stock market occurred on Thursday October 24, 1929; then, on "Black Tuesday" October 29, the stock market fell even more than it had the week before. These events were the catalyst of a worldwide economic depression.

From 1929-1933, unemployment in the U.S. increased from 4% to 25%, manufacturing output reduced by approximately a third. Prices fell causing a deflation of currency values, which made the repayments of debts much harder. The mining, lumber, and agriculture industries were hit especially hard by the drop in values. The impact was much less severe in white collar and service sectors.

Upon accepting the 1932 United States Democratic Party nomination for president, Franklin Roosevelt promised "a new deal for the American people." The phrase was borrowed from the title of Stuart Chase's book A New Deal published earlier in 1932.

Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth? I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people. This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms.

Roosevelt entered office with more than one ideology or plan for dealing with the great depression. In the "First New Deal" (1933-34) many organized liberal groups (except the Socialist Party of America, which had virtually disappeared) gained much of what they had demanded. This "First New Deal" was thus a blend of self-contradiction, pragmatism, and experiment. The economy eventually recovered from the low point of the winter of 1932-33, with sustained improvement until 1937, when the Recession of 1937 brought back 1934 levels of unemployment. Whether the New Deal was responsible for the recovery, or whether it slowed the recovery, has been disputed; leading economists maintain different perspectives.

The New Deal policies drew from many different ideas proposed earlier in the 20th century. Some advocates, led by Thurman Arnold, went back to the anti-monopoly tradition that stretched back to Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, an influential adviser to many New Dealers, argued that monopolies were a negative economic force, because they produced waste and inefficiency. However, the anti-monopoly group never had a major impact on New Deal policy. Other leaders such as Hugh Samuel Johnson of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) took ideas from the Woodrow Wilson Administration, advocating techniques used to mobilize the economy for World War I. They brought ideas and experience from the government controls and spending of 1917-18. Other New Deal planners suggested policy experiments of the 1920s, ideas from efforts to harmonize the economy by creating cooperative relationships among its constituent elements.

Roosevelt formed what he called the Brain Trust, a group of academic advisers to assist in his recovery efforts. Their solutions to the economic crisis called for more extensive government regulation of the economy. Donald Richberg, the send head of the NRA, said "A nationally planned economy is the only salvation of our present situation and the only hope for the future."

At this remove in time from the early days of the New Deal, it is difficult to recapture, even in imagination, the heady enthusiasm among a goodly number of intellectuals for a government planned economy. So far as can now be told, they believed that a bright new day was dawning, that national planning would result in an organically integrated economy in which everyone would joyfully work for the common good, and that American society would be freed at last from those antagonisms arising, as General Hugh Johnson put it, from ?the murderous doctrine of savage and wolfish individualism, looking to dog-eat-dog and devil take the hindmost."

The New Deal faced some vocal conservative opposition. The first organized opposition in 1934 came from the American Liberty League led by Democrats such as 1924 and 1928 presidential candidates John W. Davis and Al Smith. There was also a large but loosely affiliated group of New Deal opponents, who are commonly called the Old Right. This group included politicians, intellectuals, writers, and newspaper editors of various philosophical persuasions including classical liberals, and conservatives, both Democrats and Republicans.

Unemployment occurs when a person is available to work and currently seeking work, but the person is without work. The prevalence of unemployment is usually measured using the unemployment rate, which is defined as the percentage of those in the labor force who are unemployed. The unemployment rate is also used in economic studies and economic indexes such as the United States' Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators as a measure of the state of the macroeconomics.

There are a variety of d...

Edward III (13 November 1312 - 21 June 1377) was one of the most successful English monarchs of the Middle Ages. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into the most efficient military power in Europe. His reign saw vital developments in legislature and government—in particular the evolution of the English parliament—as well as the ravages of the Black Death. He remained on the throne for 50 years; no English monarch had reigned for as long since Henry III, and none would again until George III.

Edward was crowned at the age of fourteen, following the deposition of his father. When he was only seventeen years old, he led a coup against his regent, Roger Mortimer, and began his personal reign. After defeating, but not subjugating, the Kingdom of Scotland, he declared himself rightful heir to the French throne in 1340, starting what would be known as the Hundred Years' War. Following...