Table of Contents

Society & Economics — 2008

Notable events, milestones, and developments in society and economics from the year 2008.

| Topic | Summary | |——-|———| | Lehman Brothers Collapse | Investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 15, 2008 — the largest in US history — triggering global financial panic and deepening the worldwide recession. | | TARP Bailout | President George W. Bush signed the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program on October 3, 2008, authorizing the US Treasury to purchase toxic assets and stabilize the collapsing financial system. | | Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme (Dec 2008) | Bernard Madoff was arrested on December 11, 2008, after confessing to a decades-long Ponzi scheme estimated at $64.8 billion — the largest securities fraud in US history at the time. | | Cyclone Nargis, Myanmar (May 2008) | The category-4 cyclone struck Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta on May 2–3, 2008, killing approximately 138,000 people and exposing the military junta’s refusal to accept international disaster relief. |