The Financial Crisis: Lessons Learnt

Mr Phizackerley’s talk focused mainly on the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, explaining in detail - yet in understandable terms – the causes and events of the Crisis and how it connected to the current European Crisis.  This was of particular interest as it was useful in making connections to current economic problems today, such as high unemployment rates in Spain. He also touched upon the system of banks, their different sectors and how they work- again offering understandable and useful knowledge to those who attended. For those of us who were perhaps slightly too young to understand fully the reasons and consequences of the financial crisis, it was helpful in establishing an understanding of how “greed and fear” can cause so much damage. It was astonishing to see through his graphs how quickly the situation deteriorated, particularly in the housing market. Mr Phizackerley’s talk was also useful in demonstrating the different sectors that economics is needed for in banking, and therefore offering potential job ideas that were perhaps unexplored before. When answering questions at the end, especially with regards to the term “banker bashers”, he helped by offering firsthand experience that, although banking did have its downsides, he still believed it to be one of the most exciting jobs out there today. Overall, Mr Phizackerley’s talk offered us a greater knowledge of a crisis that beforehand we were perhaps vaguely aware of, but now fully understood its causes and consequences that are still occurring today.  His personal experience could be used by students to see potential careers, and as a whole was thoroughly interesting.