Whimster brings together international experts and academics, financial sector decision-makers and bankers, policy-makers and politicians to give their answers and solutions to the growing crisis in the financial services sector in the U.K.

This book analyzes how the Global Financial Crisis is portrayed in contemporary popular culture, using examples from film, literature and photography. In particular, the book explores why particular urban spaces, infrastructures and aesthetics – such as skyline shots in the opening credits of financial crisis films – recur in contemporary crisis narratives. Why are cities and finance connected in the cultural imaginary? Which ideologies do urban crisis imaginaries communicate? How do these imaginaries relate to the notion of crisis? To consider these questions, the book reads crisis narratives through the lens of myth. It combines perspectives from cultural, media and communication studies, anthropology, philosophy, geography and political economy to argue that the concept of myth can offer new and nuanced insights into the structure and politics of popular financial crisis imaginaries. In so doing, the book also asks if, how and under what conditions urban crisis imaginaries open up or foreclose systematic and political understandings of the Global Financial Crisis as a symptom of the broader process of financialization.

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2013 im Fachbereich Geowissenschaften / Geographie - Wirtschaftsgeographie, Note: 2, Universität Hamburg (Geographie), Veranstaltung: Spatial Dimensions of the Global Crisis, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: In times of intensifying globalization processes and interweaving of the global economy, it is very interesting to find out, what are the actors or places where these processes are controlled. Are there any important places which have key functions to command and control? Many scientists are gone further into this question, and many concepts appeared to find out these centres of commanding and controlling. The most popular concept is the global city concept by Saskia Sassen. But for the most part, all concepts assume that there must exist some centres or cities, which include functions to control the world economy. And if there are such centres, are there any centres which are more important than others and are there any forms of hierarchies? Thus are there any processes which lead to a shift within the hierarchies like the global financial crisis? This paper seeks to answer these questions, especially if there is a shift of the leadership of global cities from predominant centres before and after the crisis.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.

The global financial and economic crises have had a devastating impact on economic and social rights. These rights were ignored by economic policy makers prior to the crises and continue to be disregarded in the current 'age of austerity'. This is the first book to focus squarely on the interrelationship between contemporary and historic economic and financial crises, the responses thereto, and the resulting impact upon economic and social rights. Chapters examine the obligations imposed by such rights in terms of domestic and supranational crisis-related policy and law, and argue for a response to the crises that integrates these human rights considerations. The expert international contributors, both academics and practitioners, are drawn from a range of disciplines including law, economics, development and political science. The collection is thus uniquely placed to address debates and developments from a range of disciplinary, geographical and professional perspectives.

This book explores possible causes of the global economic crisis, including lack of banking regulation, greed of financial institutions, decisions of the Federal Reserve, and the abandonment of the gold standard. Examines the differing impacts of the crisis on wealthy nations and developing nations, and why some nations are weathering the crisis better than others. Discusses potential solutions to the crisis, such as regulatory reform and lowering restrictions on trade.