Non-fiction · 2005–2015

The 2008 financial crisis

What banks, raters and officials knew, and when the public learned it

Between 2005 and 2008, lenders, investment banks and ratings agencies built and sold trillions of dollars of mortgage-linked securities. Internally, many saw the risk early: Goldman reversed its mortgage bet in December 2006, S&P staff doubted their own models, and Lehman used Repo 105 to make its leverage look lower. The public learned much of this only years later, through the Lehman examiner's report (2010), Senate and House hearings, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2011) and civil settlements running into 2015. This map sets when things happened against when they came out.