Global financial crisis in October 2008 in Iceland. On October 7 the Federal reserve announced formation of a Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) which will serve as a funding backstop to facilitate the issuance of term commercial paper by eligible issuers. Several countries announced new or increased deposit guarantees: Taiwan outlined plans to double the guarantee to NT$3 million ($92,000) and the European Union agreed to increase guarantees across the EU to at least €50,000 per saver. Several EU states then announced increases on top of this minimum: Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and Greece each announced they would guarantee up to €100,000. The government of Britain announced
Global financial crisis in December 2008 the last six months of 2008. Global financial crisis in December 2008 On December 1, the National Bureau of Economic Research officially declared that the U.S. economy had entered recession in December 2007, a full year earlier. (See late 2000s recession) The Labor Department said that the US lost 533,000 jobs in November 2008, the biggest monthly loss since 1974. This raised the unemployment rate from 6.5% to 6.7%. On December 9, the Bank of Canada lowered its key interest rate by 0.75% to 1.5%, the lowest it had been since 1958; at the same time the Bank officially announced