Financial safety

How close are we to another financial crisis? 8 experts weigh in.

It’s been 10 years since Lehman Brothers collapsed, setting off a global financial meltdownthat would take years to correct. A decade later, there are some guardrails in place to prevent a Great Recession 2.0 — but another crisis at some point is essentially inevitable.

The 2008 financial crisis wreaked havoc on global markets and the world. In the United States, the S&P 500 fell by 28 percent in the 22 trading days after Lehman filed for bankruptcy in September 2008. Over the next six months, it would lose nearly half its value. The unemployment rate jumped from 6.1 percent in August 2008 to 9.5 percent two years later in August 2010. Millions of Americans lost their homes, their jobs, or both.

A decade later, there’s been a lot of reflection on what happened in the financial crisis — and whether a repeat could be on the horizon. I reached out to eight experts to ask how far we’ve come, specifically in terms of government policy, in guarding against another financial and economic calamity. Simply put, are the guardrails in place to prevent another financial crisis like what happened in 2008?