Listen to an account of a community bank that was taken over by the FDIC in the Great Recession.

In March 2008, Bear Stearns was the first major bank to collapse in the Great Recession—leading to panic across the entire global financial system.

The Federal Reserve fought the Great Recession primarily with quantitative easing and repurchasing agreements.

Before Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 2008 with more than $600B in debt, the Federal Reserve tried to orchestrate a private deal to save the then-fourth-largest investment bank in the US.

Bank runs, explained

A major feature of the modern financial system is trust: if an institution loses it, customers will quickly withdraw deposits and stockholders will sell their shares. This digestible animated video looks into the nature and history of bank runs and...

BankFind is a tool that helps you find current and former FDIC-insured banking institutions

The tool from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (also known as the FDIC) allows users to search for these institutions by name, location, and more.

For every $100 you deposit, your bank puts a few cents in the FDIC insurance fund

This is a result of the 1933 Banking Act that established the Federal Deposit Insurance Fund. The law sought to prevent bank runs like those that decimated the banking industry amid the Great Crash and subsequent major depression. Today, individual depositors are insured up to $250K at each bank where they have an account.

Commonly referred to as the 'bank bailout,' the Troubled Asset Relief Program disbursed $443B in an attempt to keep the financial system solvent.

Central banking in the US has had a fraught political history

That history includes its doomed early efforts in the First and Second National Banks, as well as its failure to address the worst financial period in US history, the Great Depression.

American International Group, one of the largest insurance companies in the world, received $182B from the federal government—the largest of any bailout in the wake of the Great Recession.

Track how much the US government has spent on bailouts.

Not all companies with bank-sounding names are actually FDIC-insured banks

When purchasing a certificate of deposit, it's important to know if you are purchasing a “deposit” product issued by an FDIC-insured bank.

The worst US bank runs since 1900

From the Panic of 1907 to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in 2023, this bank scholar and former Fed official goes into the history of the country's worst bank runs.

Banks have increased small loan programs since 2018, upping competition for payday lenders

One of the reasons payday lending flourished for nearly two decades is that most banks charged high overdraft fees and didn't offer small loans. However, since 2018, banks have increased their small loan options. Supporters say this provides safer alternatives for consumers, as banks are subject to more regulatory measures and are less likely to allow consumers to keep rolling over loans.

The main bank serving Silicon Valley startups and venture capitalists collapsed in 2023

Silicon Valley Bank—the 16th largest bank in the US—served many tech startups in the area as well as many venture capitalists. The bank collapsed in 2023—in a single day, bankers took out $42B.

The 2008 financial system unraveled in a wave of speculation

Michael Lewis—author of the bestselling "The Big Short"—explains how a wave of speculation (among other factors) drove the 2008 collapse, from lenders issuing risky mortgages to Wall Street turning them into fragile securities. He also highlights the few outsiders who recognized the bubble and bet against it before the crash.

A deep dive into Enron, one of the largest accounting scandals in history

Investing comes with great opportunities for reward, but it also carries great risk. Investors learned that the hard way when Enron collapsed. Everyone lost money—from the largest institutions on Wall Street to mom-and-pop investors who bought S&P 500 index funds. This series from American Scandal starts with a close-up into an investment manager at Enron who started to unravel the accounting scandal happening behind the scenes. Listen here.

The Dodd-Frank Act increased banks' capital requirements and established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The National Housing Act established the Federal Housing Administration

During the Great Depression, 1,000 homes were foreclosed on per day, and half of the mortgages across the country defaulted. To address this crisis, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Housing Act. It established the Federal Housing Administration, which is still around today and helps protect lenders and buyers.

The world's most famous case of deflation happened after Black Thursday

While the details are not fully agreed upon, many economists point to the Federal Reserve's tightening of the money supply as a prime culprit, leading to a significant deflationary spiral.

How a failed investment bank almost became the name of a whiskey line

In the fallout of the Great Recession of 2008, Barclays bought several assets from the failed investment bank Lehman Brothers in a fire sale and maintained the company's trademark, despite the bank's collapse. Tiger Lily Ventures attempted to launch a whiskey line parodying the name, but the product was rejected in court due to questions over Barclays' maintenance of the trademark.

IPOs that failed

Plenty of private companies fail once they try to go public. Failing can mean shares sell for less than their initial asking price on its IPO date, or it can look like a company pulling out of the IPO process at the last minute. Some companies with failed IPOs include Pets.com, Etsy, and Robinhood. Learn more about these companies and others here.

Some semi-liquid private credit funds saw a surge in investor redemptions in early 2026

This raised red flags about the state of the private credit market at large. However, experts have cautioned that the idea that private credit is on the verge of collapse is overstated.

Are credit unions living up to DEI promises?

Credit union insiders often say their institutions better serve minority bankers through a combination of a not-for-profit ethos and community focus. However, a recent probe found that the largest US credit union rejected more than half of all Black applicants for conventional mortgages. To dive deep into Navy Federal Credit Union’s mortgage practices, read this journalistic investigation.

Near-universal banking masks a large underbanked shadow system

FDIC data indicates 128 million households have a checking account, the vast majority (96% in 2024). But more than 14% of households are underbanked, meaning they have accounts but also rely on nonbank services such as check cashing, payday loans, or prepaid cards.

What was it like to live through the Great Depression?

Hear the personal accounts of four people who lived through the Great Depression, as told by NPR's Throughline. Listen to this 47-minute podcast episode to get a bit more insight into the countrywide economic crisis and what it meant it for everyday people.

Watch Margot Robbie explain subprime mortgages—risky loans given to homebuyers with low credit scores or no income verification.

US homeownership rates declined from the start of the Great Recession through 2016.

Since the 1990s, banks have sold some of the credit risk of their accounts to external investors, known as SRTs, or synthetic risk transfers

This means if the account defaults, the outside investors assume most of the risk in return for some regular payments, freeing up the bank's ledger. It is a form of insurance used by banks to allow them to free up capital. In 2024, nearly $100B worth of SRT notes were sold.

The financial crisis in 2008 had a major impact on many 401(k) plans

Amid the 2008 financial crisis, stocks and bonds cratered as the broader market floundered due to the subprime mortgage crisis. Investors with so-called "target-date" funds—which shift allocations based on the maturation of a fund—shared in the slump, with some funds declining by 20% or more just a year or two away from maturation.

Bankruptcy is a legal way to manage overwhelming debt, whether for individuals, corporations, or even local governments

Chapter 7 is for liquidating personal assets to clear debts, Chapter 13 allows a repayment plan for individuals, and Chapter 11 lets businesses reorganize to stay afloat.

Markets have always recovered and hit new highs following crashes

The crash that preceded the Great Depression was the most severe the US has ever experienced. It was 28 times worse than the downturn that followed the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The story of Boeing's unraveling

Long lauded as one of the world's greatest aviation companies, Boeing has taken a nosedive in the last decade after major mass casualty crashes of its planes and high-profile scandals, which have led to numerous investigations, the temporary grounding of some of its planes, and a huge hit in its value. Listen to this first episode of a series telling the story of Boeing's fall.

In 2007, Bridgewater Associates warned of an impending financial crisis

Ray Dalio even presented his concerns to the US Treasury Secretary. In late 2025, Dalio warned of another recession, in line with models he created in his book "How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle."

Read about why bans on short selling are a controversial policy

Generally, short selling is legal, but regulations often restrict short positions when a stock has experienced a sharp price decline (more than 10% in one day). However, negative feedback loops in times of financial crisis have given short selling a bad reputation. The government has temporarily banned short selling during previous market downturns—like The Great Recession of 2008 and the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic—but experts argue whether those bans actually improved market stability or just distorted prices.

In 1862, Friedrich Raiffeisen created cooperative banks to help farmers escape loan sharks

These cooperative banks offered fair loans and community-owned financial services. His vision spread worldwide, leading to credit unions with over 140 million members in the US alone today.

Visualizing the financial troubles of FTX at the time of its bankruptcy

Just before Sam Bankman-Fried declared FTX bankrupt in November of 2022, he sought to raise funds quickly to try to save the cryptocurrency exchange. As part of that attempt, he sent around a glimpse of the exchange's current balance sheet, which showed the company had liabilities of $9 billion with only $900 million in liquid assets. Check out the visualization here.

Fractional reserve banking creates deposits from loans, not the other way around

The traditional view of banking is that customers deposit money into the bank and the bank lends out those deposits. That's partly true, but most banks work by making loans first, which creates an asset on their balance sheet as a corresponding deposit. Banks often operate under a money multiplier ratio, lending out several times their total reserves.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis tested the limits of the rules-based order's financial architecture

When a currency crisis hit Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea, the IMF allocated $118B in emergency loans. However, the attached conditions were widely criticized for worsening the economic downturn and increasing distrust of Western-led institutions across the Global South.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City’s Financial District in 2001, many banks decided to relocate

Much has been said about why today’s top banks are typically no longer headquartered on Wall Street itself. The terrorist attacks in New York City’s Financial District on Sept. 11, 2001, are one reason many banks decided to relocate.

The Glass-Steagall Act separated commercial banks in the US from investment banks

In 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act legally separated commercial banks in the US from investment banks. However, by 1999, the act was repealed—meaning that today’s investment banks are no longer required to be separate from the type of bank where you deposit your paycheck.

A private equity firm led the leveraged buyout of Toys 'R' Us before the company's bankruptcy

After being acquired by two private equity firms and a real estate company for more than $6B in 2005, Toys 'R' Us filed for bankruptcy in 2017. Many point to the $400M a year the company had to pay to service its debt, as well as increased competition from online retailers like Amazon, for draining its profits and ultimately dragging it under.

How the Bank of Italy became Bank of America

Amid the devastation of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, Italian immigrant and local banker Amodei Giannini managed to keep hold of a substantial amount of currency. On a handshake, Giannini loaned needy locals money to rebuild. The enterprising banker would go on to form one of the first banks for the middle class, the Bank of Italy, which would go on to become the Bank of America in 1930. Read about the founder here.

The funeral home industry is increasingly consolidating via private equity firms

A growing share of the funeral home industry is being acquired by private equity-backed firms. A 2022 article states that about 20% of this $23B business is owned by funeral home chains, and private equity-backed firms own about a quarter of those.

The concept of CDs dates back to the 1600s in Europe

Banks in the US started issuing CDs in the early 1800s as the banking system began to take shape following the Revolutionary War. The federal government did not formally insure CDs until the FDIC was formed in 1933.

The pandemic forged new FIRE followers

The FIRE movement gained steam during the pandemic, when some were inspired to clean financial house amid an environment of global economic uncertainty.

A third of Americans don't have the cash they need to cover a $500 emergency

That's according to a 2023 Federal Reserve survey. So what does the average American in this camp do when, say, their car breaks down? This video compares six of the most common ways Americans get money when they don't have it. As it turns out, some of them opt for payday loans, which this video argues are predatory.

How art-backed loans work

Using your art collections—some of which are valued in the millions—to secure a loan is becoming more common among collectors. Here's a breakdown on how banks and private lenders are making best of the opportunity in liquidity.

Many retail investors exited the stock market after 2008, leading to a drop in individual market participation

That changed thanks to GameStop, federal stimulus checks, and strong corporate results in the first quarter of 2021. This chart plots how much retail investors poured into the market each day, reaching records in early 2023.

Homes in areas increasingly prone to natural disasters often aren't covered by private insurance

Instead, they're often covered under insurance plans of last resort, known as FAIR (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements) plans. However, as more and more homes become covered by FAIR, the program is facing strain. This interactive visual helps explain the new problems FAIR is facing.

Why the SEC was started

The Securities and Exchange Commission was created during the Great Depression to restore public trust in financial markets after the 1929 crash. Established in 1934, it enforces transparency, investigates fraud, and protects investors by requiring companies to disclose accurate information and holding violators accountable.