In response to a struggling housing market, the Federal Market Open Committee (FMOC) began lowering the fed funds rate, dropping to 3.5% on January 22, 2008, then to 3.0% a week later, hoping to restore demand. This marked the start of the 2008 financial crisis, the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression of 1929. [1]
It reached a climax with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 14, 2008, and the subsequent international banking crisis.