主题：【资料整理】美国次贷危机时间表 -- 飞扬的心

2001-2006

2000–2003: Early 2000s recession spurs government action to rev up economy.

2000-2001: US Federal Reserve lowers Federal funds rate 11 times, from 6.5% (May 2000) to 1.75% (December 2001), creating an easy-credit environment that fueled the growth of US subprime mortgages.

2001年10月7日-至今：阿富汗战争。

2002年：美国大公司假帐丑闻大规模爆发。

2002-2006: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac combined purchases of incorrectly rated AAA subprime mortgage-backed securities rise from $38 billion to $90 billion per year.

Lenders began to offer loans to higher-risk borrowers, including illegal immigrants. Subprime mortgages amounted to $600 billion (20%) by 2006.

Speculation in residential real estate rose. During 2005, 28% of homes purchased were for investment purposes, with an additional 12% purchased as vacation homes. During 2006, these figures were 22% and 14%, respectively. As many as 85% of condominium properties purchased in Miami were for investment purposes which the owners resold ("flipped") without the seller ever having lived in them.

2002–2003: Mortgage denial rate of 14 percent for conventional home purchase loans, half of 1997.

2002: Annual home price appreciation of 10% or more in California, Florida, and most Northeastern states.

June 17:President G.W. Bush sets goal of increasing minority home owners by at least 5.5 million by 2010 through billions of dollars in tax credits, subsidies and a Fannie Mae commitment of $440 billion to establish NeighborWorks America with faith based organizations.

2003年3月20日-至今：伊拉克战争。

June 25 2003: FED lowers federal funds rate to 1%, the lowest in 45 years, and this rate is kept for one year (until June 30 2004).

2003-2007: U.S. subprime mortgages increased 292%, from $332 billion to $1.3 trillion, due primarily to the private sector entering the mortgage bond market, once an almost exclusive domain of government sponsored enterprises like Freddie Mac.

The Federal Reserve fails to use its supervisory and regulatory authority over banks, mortgage underwriters and other lenders, who abandoned loan standards (employment history, income, down payments, credit rating, assets, property loan-to-value ratio and debt-servicing ability), emphasizing instead lender's ability to securitize and repackage subprime loans.

2004-2007: Many financial institutions issued large amounts of debt and invested in mortgage-backed securities (MBS), believing that house prices would continue to rise and that households would keep up on mortgage payments.

2004: U.S. homeownership rate peaks with an all time high of 69.2 percent.

Following example of Countrywide Financial, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, many lenders adopt automated loan approvals that critics argued were not subjected to appropriate review and documentation according to good mortgage underwriting standards. In 2007, 40% of all subprime loans resulted from automated underwriting. Mortgage fraud by borrowers increases.

HUD ratcheted up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac affordable-housing goals for next four years, from 50 percent to 56 percent, stating they lagged behind the private market; they purchased $175 billion in 2004—44 percent of the market; from 2004 to 2006, they purchased $434 billion in securities backed by subprime loans.

October 2004: SEC effectively suspends net capital rule for five firms—Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley. Freed from government imposed limits on the debt they can assume, they levered up 20, 30 and even 40 to 1, buying massive amounts of mortgage-backed securities and other risky investments.

January 2005: Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich raises concerns over subprime lending practices, says mortgage brokers might not have incentives for careful underwriting and that that portion of the subprime industry was veering close to a breakdown, that it's possible that it is a bubble but that the housing market did not qualify for specific monetary policy treatment at this point.

Fall 2005: Booming housing market halts abruptly; from the fourth quarter of 2005 to the first quarter of 2006, median prices nationwide drop 3.3 percent.

August 2006: U.S. Home Construction Index is down over 40% as of mid-August 2006 compared to a year earlier.

2006年12月-2008年10月：中国的“负利率”时代，期间6次加息（全在2007年，2.79%-4.14%）

2007

Home sales continue to fall. The plunge in existing-home sales is the steepest since 1989. In Q1/2007, S&P/Case-Shiller house price index records first year-over-year decline in nationwide house prices since 1991. The subprime mortgage industry collapses, and a surge of foreclosure activity (twice as bad as 2006) and rising interest rates threaten to depress prices further as problems in the subprime markets spread to the near-prime and prime mortgage markets.

February–March: Subprime industry collapse; several subprime lenders declaring bankruptcy, announcing significant losses, or putting themselves up for sale. These include Accredited Home Lenders Holding, New Century Financial, DR Horton and Countrywide Financial.

1月18日：纽约商品交易所西得克萨斯原油期货价格报收50.48美元/桶，跌至1年半以来的最低点。

March 6: In a speech before the Independent Community Bankers of America's Annual Convention and Techworld, Honolulu, Hawaii, Ben Bernanke, quoting Alan Greenspan, warns that the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were a source of "systemic risk" and suggest legislation to head off a possible crisis.

April 2: New Century Financial, largest U.S. subprime lender, files for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

June 7: Bear Stearns & Co informs investors in two of its funds, the High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund and the High-Grade Structured Credit Fund that it was halting redemptions.

June 14–22: Rumors surface that two Bear Stearns-managed hedge funds invested in securities backed by subprime mortgage loans have incurred heavy losses and that $3.8 billion worth of bonds are up for sale to finance margin calls. News reports eventually confirm that one of the funds is kept open through a loan injection, while the other is to be liquidated.

June 20: Merrill Lynch seized $800 million in assets from two Bear Stearns hedge funds that were involved in securities backed by subprime loans.

6月29日：美元兑日元汇率报收本年度最高点123.14日元/美元，为4年来新高。

July 19: Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 14,000 for the first time in its history.

2007年7月：中国股市泡沫膨胀。