The Major Players in the 2008 Financial Crisis and Where They Are Now

At the 10-year anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis, let's take a look at some of the major players during the meltdown. What were they doing as the financial markets succumbed to chaos, and where are they now? 

During the last year of the Bush administration, Paulson had a huge impact on economic policy. He was CEO at Goldman Sachs prior to his stint at the Treasury Department, which started in 2006. One of his famous decisions as secretary was to let Lehman Brothers fail, precipitating a stock market drop of nearly five percent. In his zeal not to repeat that mistake, he helped push the bank bailout through Congress.

In 2011, Paulson founded the Paulson Institute, a center based at the University of Chicago that focuses on environmental and economic policies in the United States and China. He is the chairman of the institute, and he is also co-chair of the Risky Business Project, which explores the economic impacts of climate change.

At the helm of the country's leading monetary policy-making body during the financial crisis, Bernanke was the face of quantitative easing. This policy involved reducing interest rates and injecting more money into the economy in order to encourage banks to lend and consumers to spend. While many politicians and economsts were worried quantitative easing would spur inflation and new asset bubbles, some, including Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman laud Bernanke's efforts, and even insist that he helped rein in the crisis, preventing an even bigger financial catastrophe.

Today, Bernanke is a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution, and frequently gives analysis and commentary on economic policy.

When Lehman collapsed, Geithner was in charge of the most powerful branch of the Federal Reserve. A few months later, he became Treasury Secretary under President Barack Obama. On one hand, Wall Street decried him as someone who over-regulated, while on the other hand, progressive activists viewed him as a tool of the banks. During his time at Treasury, Geithner was also embroiled in a controversy over his failure to fully report and pay income tax from 2001 to 2004. Geithner apologized for the mistake and paid the IRS his outstanding debt.

Now president of Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm that runs "loans by mail" outfit Mariner Finance that makes money from short-term, high-interest loans.

As the last CEO of Lehman Brothers, Fuld's name was synonymous with the financial crisis. He steered Lehman into subprime mortgages and made the investment bank one of the leaders in packaging the debt into bonds that were then sold to investors. While other banks were bailed out, Lehman was allowed to fail, in spite of Fuld's pleas to policymakers.

Fuld claimes he never received a golden parachute at his exit from Lehman, but he did make more than $466 million during his tenure. Today, Fuld maintains a low-key public profile, but he is the head of Matrix Private Capital Group, a high-end wealth management firm he helped found in 2016. 

After Lehman Brothers collapsed, Mack feared Morgan Stanley would be next, and he fought with Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner so secure a bailout, while at the same trying to get financing from investors in Japan and China. In the end, he stood up to the policymakers, and Morgan Stanley was allowed to become a banking holding company, opening the way for increased liquidity and the opportunity to be part of the bailout.

Mack stepped down as CEO in 2010, and in 2012 relinquished his position as chairman of the board. Recently, Mack has been involved as a board member with fintech companies such as LendingClub and Lantern Credit, where he is chairman of the board.

Another investment bank that participated in packaging toxic mortgage debt into securities, Goldman Sachs, led by Lloyd Blankfein, was allowed to convert to a banking holding company and received $10 billion in government funds, which it eventually repaid. In 2009, Blankfein even apologized for the firm's role in the meltdown.

Blankfein is one of the few players in the crisis who retained his position. He has remained CEO of Goldman Sachs, although he's expected to retire by the end of September in favor of David Solomon.

Under the leadership of Dimon, JPMorgan bought Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual in an attempt to stem the rising tide of economic instability. JPMorgan Chase took millions from the Fed's TARP program, although in later years Dimon insisted that the company didn't need it and they only agreed to move forward under duress from policymakers.

Like Blankfein, Dimon has managed to hold onto the reins of his company. In fact, JPMorgan, after dealing with legal issues arising from crisis-era purchases, is doing quite well. Dimon is still CEO. Earlier in 2018, he signed on for another five years.

Shortly after claiming Bank of America wasn't interested in major acquisitions, Lewis presided over its crisis-era takeovers of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. In the following months, Lewis was transformed from one of the savior of the crisis – even receiving Banker of the Year in 2008 – into one of its villains. Bank of America almost buckled under the weight of losses from the acquisitions and Lewis himself was investigated for the methods used to gain approval for the Merrill Lynch deal.

Today, Lewis is largely out of the public eye. He agreed to pay $10 million to settle an investigation by the State of New York, and even had to sell one of his multi-million dollar homes. However, Lewis also still has enough left over to endow a chair at his alma mater, Georgia State University.

While other rating agencies followed similar practices to Standard & Poor's in the run-up to the crisis, Corbet was the most high profile of the agency leaders. Time Magazine named her one of the top 25 people to blame for the financial crisis. Critics contend that Standard & Poor's had a conflict of interest in taking payment from companies to rate the riskiness of their products.

Even though she left Standard & Poor's in disgrace – and the company later had to pay a $1.5 billion fine to the U.S. government – Corbet has continued to serve on boards of various companies. Currently she is the principal of Cross Ridge Capital, a firm she established in 2008, and a director of MassMutual. She also continues to consult in the fintech sector.

It's debatable how much power a president actually has over the economy and the markets. However, the fact that Bush was president during the lead up to the financial crisis and the Great Recession makes him a major player. The tax cuts and deficit-spending favored by his administration didn't help the country's situation. There is a case to be made, though, that many of the economic problems leading to the financial crisis began during previous administrations and then-president Bill Clinton's decision to sign a repeal of the Glass-Steagall legislation, which  separated commercial and investment banking, also contributed.

Today, Bush is largely a political exile, mainly resurfacing for high-profile public events like Senator John McCain's funeral. He spends much of his time at his home in Texas, refining his painting skills.