The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "economic crisis" ...
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Wall Street Money Machine
This series of stories reveals that several Wall Street bankers saw indications of the housing market meltdown "long before the public and policy makers." The three-part series offers a different look at the all too familiar results of bigger payouts for the bankers and huge job and savings losses for the public. The series covers the hedge fund Magnetar and the "mechanics" behind the failure of Merrill Lynch.
Tags: Merrill Lynch; Magnetar; CDOs; Wall Street; bankers; gains; payouts; economic crisis; BankAmerica; hedge fund; housing market; bribery
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"Easy Money, BTO Business: The Truth of 'Tax Shield of Macquarie'"
In an attempt to develop the country of Korea during an economic crisis, the government established the Build-Transfer-Operate (BTO) system, which allowed a toll fee to be applied to many roads. However, in order for the system to work, an additional system, the Minimum Revenue Guarantee, had to be introduced. The MRG guaranteed companies receive a "minimal income level from the government" when the toll fee fell "short of projections." This angered many people who did not use the roads due to the high toll fee.
Tags: MKIF; Macquarie Korea Infrastructure Fund; Build-Transfer-Operate; BFO; Woomyunsan Tunnel; Seoul; National Pension Service
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"Krugman and Depressions in America"
In this report, Professor Paul Krugman analyzes the causes of the U.S. financial collapse. The story also explains "how the crisis was experienced in the U.S." Complicated economic topics covered and are explained to a public who may not have a background or much experience in dealing with economic issues.
Tags: Great Depression; economic collapse; unemployment; fraud; poverty; Bernie Madoff; financial institutions
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"House of Cards"
In this investigation, CNBC takes a look at the beginnings of the "global economic collapse." After 9/11, the U.S. government "dropped interest rates" in an attempt to breathe new life into the economy. The investigation reveals how Wall Street took on unstable mortgages to "re-package it and sell it to investors." This story includes personal accounts from home buyers, mortgage brokers, bankers and more.
Tags: hedge-fund; housing market; economic collapse; recession; Wall Street; George W. Bush; Alan Greenspan; Henry Paulson; bailouts; bankrupt; credit crisis
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Inside the Financial Fiasco
In this series, it describes the underlying causes of the economic crisis. At the center of the problem were "stated-income loans, mortgages where the lenders never bothered to verify borrowers' incomes". Another cause to the crisis is the country's extraordinary amount of consumer debt. Also, now that we are in tough economic times scams are put together to target those in financial trouble and scamming them out of more money.
Tags: crisis; economy; financial; mortgage industry; investment banks; debt; banking; families; interest rates; credit; business
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America's Corporate Royalty
This group of stories ran throughout all of 2008. In a year in which bad decisions by corporate leaders led the country into financial crisis, the ABC News investigative team produced a series of reports on America's corporate royalty -- the CEOs who used their company treasuries not only to enrich and pamper themselves, but to gain advantage in the courts and Congress, with scant regard for the country's democratic principles.
Tags: bailout; economic collapse; Big Three; Lehman Brothers; Wall Street; Ford; Chrysler; General Motors
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The Lending Squeeze; Consumer Debt Levels Increase as Business Loads Drop; Job Losses but No Crisis With Flight of L.A Banks; U.S Slowdown Begins To Show Up in L.A Statistics; Lenders Growing Cold To Auto Lease Market; Hard Ball For Hard Money: Sub-Prime Lenders Thrive; Private Investors Step in as Traditional Leaders Retrench
In the midst of an economic downturn, loan defaulters in L.A are giving bank managers the nightmares. With their non-performing loan ratios being pushed to their highest level in five years, banks are taking some stringent measures. Like tightening loan standards and pursuing new lines of businesses. The article also talks about the increase in the levels of consumer debts against a contrasting dip in business loads and various aspects of the chill that's engulfing the lending business.
Tags: Banking; Finance; loans; investment; defaults; commercial; banks
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Incentives To Burn: How Federal Policies, Industry Shifts Created A Natural Gas Crunch
The WSJ drills into the causes of a natural gas crunch and discovers that the widely popular fuel is fast burning out, thanks to federal policies and industry economics. With prices high, experts estimate that this crisis could last for well close to a decade. Alaska now seems to be a potent back-up resource with producers getting around the problem of lack of shipping by reinjecting the gas into their own wells to boost oil production.
Tags: Natural Gas; Fuel; Environment
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A Quiet Crisis
Using a database of more than 490,000 alumni, The Plain Dealer 's two-part series tracked where graduates of Ohio's colleges and universities go after getting their degrees. "The findings: The better educated the graduates, the more elite the school that produced them and the more attractive their degrees for economic development, the more likely they are to leave. And by a good margin."
Tags: college graduates; Ohio; brain drain; alumni; migration; population
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Thriving Crisis
The IMF has come under attack for its handling of the Asian economic downslide, and some critics plan to questions its very existence.
Tags: IMF; Asian economic crisis; markets; commerce; currency