Financial system disruption, 2007–08  Global financial markets sharply became unsettled in July and August 2007, when a number of large US and European financial institutions suspended redemptions in investment vehicles linked to US mortgage debt and their derivatives. Through the following year, concerns mounted about the extent and complexity of global bank exposures and vulnerabilities to growing economic weakness.
These concerns soon embraced a very wide sweep of financial products in the US and elsewhere. Bear Stearns was effectively bailed out by the US taxpayer on the basis that it was too interconnected to be allowed to fail.