Reference

World Financial Crisis 2008

What you can do

It is pretty easy to feel helpless in the face of the gloomy deluge of information from across the globe but we can all take some more personal control of our financial situation if we have the information. Our blogger Jane has an interesting comment on this in her post How to Make Jam while the financial system collapses.

The library also has excellent resources for:

Go to any news source, be it online, newspaper, television or radio, and the headlines are dominated by the current international financial crisis.

Once Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehmann Brothers were strange entities from Planet USA far far away, now we see them as the harbingers of news much closer to home – the “prefu” (The Treasury's Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update report), tax cuts, lowering the interest rates, bank liquidity.

There has been a world-wide round of bank deposit guarantees from central government banks including New Zealand’s own Deposit Guarantee Scheme in concert with Australia.

If you are wanting to expand your understanding of the 2008 financial crisis the library has some very useful resources including recommendations of good places to help you understand financial jargon.

Useful websites

  • Finance and Investment in Christchurch and Canterbury @ localeye A comprehensive listing of links to finance and investment businesses and organisations in the region.
  • Stumped by stagflation, sub-prime mortgages, negative equity and the rest? The BBC has a Layman’s finance crisis glossary to help you decipher jargon.
  • Interest.co.nz is a New Zealand website that aimes to keep you up-to-date with interest rates for mortages, credit cards and foreign exchange and provides other valuable financial information.
  • New Zealand Stock Exchange keep up with the New Zealand Sharemarket.
  • The Commerce Commission enforces legislation that promotes competition in New Zealand markets and prohibits misleading and deceptive conduct by traders (under the Fair Trading Act and the Commerce Act.) The Commission also ensures compliance with legislation specific to the telecommunications, dairy and electricity industries.
  • Reserve Bank of New Zealand New Zealand's central bank. Its overall purpose is to maintain the stability and efficiency of the financial system.
  • New Zealand Treasury The Government’s lead advisor on economic and financial issues. Help manage the financial affairs of the Crown.
  • Business New Zealand New Zealand's largest advocacy group for enterprise formed by a merger of the New Zealand Employers Federation and the New Zealand Manufacturers Federation.
  • See also the large number of websites in the Internet gateway Finance and Investment and Economics sections.

Resources in our libraries

  • Rogue EconomicsNassim Taleb has published two books about forecasting and predictability in reference to markets.
  • Loretta Napoleoni really gets in to what we are now seeing unfolding on a global scale with her Rogue Economics; capitalism’s new reality. This is a spirited expose of the rapid and unexpected transformations generated by market forces unleashed under globalization, and the impact on people's lives around the world.
  • The American economist Milton Freidman was the leading advocate of the free market and minimizing the role of government in favor of the private sector.
  • John Maynard Keynes was a famous economist who advocated governments using fiscal and monetary measures to mitigate the adverse effects of economic highs and lows.
  • Some subject searches you could try include:

Online news sources

International

  • The BBC has graphics, news, interviews and other background analysis in Finance Crisis In Graphics. Their feature, Where has all the money gone, whilst it has a UK focus, gives a useful insight into how the modern banking system works.
  • Included is a timeline of events leading to the crisis.
  • Going to the original source of the problem the New York Times has a series of articles called The Reckoning.
  • Reuters news agency.

New Zealand

  • Follow the New Zealand Herald's Wall Street Meltdown where articles and news about the financial crisis are collected.
  • The Fairfax website stuff.co.nz has collected its articles under the title Market Meltdown.

Australia

  • The Aussie economy has a big impact on our economy – keep up with what is happening across the ditch by reading The Australian.
  • The Age in Melbourne has an audio slideshow Economic Meltdown 101 which gives a straightforward background to the the crisis, and a brief run down of some key terms and key players.

Premium websites and databases

Try “world credit crunch” in our 360Degree Search and you will find a vast array of articles and other information on what is happening.

Our premium websites include:

October 2008