1. May 14, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of International Monetary Fund, was disgraced and forced to resign. He faced a trial after being accused of sexual assault on a maid in his penthouse suite of New York's Sofitel Hotel. He resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund. He was also a lead-runner at the French presidential election, but after this incidence, his presidential ambitions were ruined.
2. May 17, 2011
Anti-capitalism demonstrations were started in Spain on this day. These protests were a series of ongoing demonstrations in Spain started on 15 May with an initial call in 58 Spanish cities. By September, they spread to Britain and U.S. via Chile, with tens of thousands, representing across 82 countries by October.
September 17, 2011
Occupy Wall Street movement started on started, in Zuccotti Park, of New York City's Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street was initiated by the Canadian activist group ‘Adbusters’ and has led to “Occupy protests and movements” around the world. The Occupy Wall Street protests are against social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the unjustified influence of corporations on government, especially from the financial services sector.
The United States lost its top AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's, a United States-based financial services company. U.S. has lost its rating for the first time in history though there were concerns over the country's deficit and debt. “The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics,” S&P said in a statement to Reuters. The CEO of S&P, Deven Sharma, was soon fired after this.
4. August 23
Gold price rose up to $1911.46 per ounce, which is highest monthly rise since 1999. This eventually happened after some investors sold the yellow metal on a notion of slowing economic growth. Amid crisis, U.S. Fed was taking measures to stimulate the U.S. economy. This made the investors take this decision of selling bullions.
Rouge trading hit one of Europe’s biggest banks, UBS, costing it up to $2 billion, which almost blow its reputation. This scandalous news pushed down its share by 10.8 percent. Director Kweku Adoboli was held responsible for this and eventually arrested. Sergio Ermotti is the new CEO of UBS.
6. October 5, 2011
World lost a genius and a visionary icon, Steven P Jobs. The Inc Chairman and Co-founder of Apple, who brought a revolution in the tech world of personal computer industry died out of Pancreatic Cancer.
February 29, 2012
Apple's market capitalization soared over $500 billion in trade. Today Apple stands at a market value of $546 billion, with around 63,300 employees.
7. November 6, 2011
Greek PM, George Papandreou, agreed to step down from power amidst crippling debt crisis. He is succeeded by Lucas Papademos, Vice president of the European Central Bank. This was a sign that the country was deep in trouble.
UN stated in a report that it has “serious concerns” about Iran’s nuclear activities and also has “credible” information that Tehran is working to develop atomic weapons. This notion alerted the West to reinforce sanctions against the Islamic republic.
February 19, 2012
Iran banned oil exports to Britain and France following sanctions put in place by the European Union and the United States in January.
9. December 8, 2011
The European Central Bank gave 489.2 billion euro in cheap, as a three-year loan to 523 banks. This step was taken in effort to seize the financial crisis in the euro zone. Though the markets cheered but this attempt did not fully pay-off and warranted a second round of easing from the ECB.
10 March 11, 2012
China has a trade deficit of $31.5 billion which is the biggest of the decade. This happened as imports increased faster than exports for the nation. China is trying to bring about a standard shift in functioning of the nation, by reducing the dependence only on the export.