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Five Years After The 2008 Recession, Here Are Five People Who Rose To Fame

Five People Who Shot To Fame In The Recession
Asa Bennett
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On October 24th 2008, the UK economy started to contract in the first sign of the recession taking hold.

This came as the International Monetary Fund announced £1.3 billion worth of aid to Iceland to prop up its ailing banking system, as other countries started to feel the economic shockwaves.

To commemorate the five years since the recession started, HuffPostUK presents five people who shot to fame for good reasons, or more notorious ones.

People Who Shot To Fame In The Recession
Vince Cable (01 of04)
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The top LibDem won as a reputation as an economic sage for seeming to predict the 2008 recession many years earlier. Back in November 2003, Cable asked Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, "Is not the brutal truth that ... the growth of the British economy is sustained by consumer spending pinned against record levels of personal debt, which is secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank of England describes as well above equilibrium level?" Brown replied, "As the Bank of England said yesterday, consumer spending is returning to trend. The Governor said, 'there is no indication that the scale of debt problems have ... risen markedly in the last five years."Brown is now ex-Prime Minister, while Vince Cable has risen up to be the LibDem's business secretary and arch-nemesis of the Tories.
Fred Goodwin (02 of04)
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Fred 'the Shred' Goodwin took over the reins of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2001. Sadly, Goodwin's disastrous £55 billion takeover of the Dutch Bank ABN AMRO in October 2007 left RBS dangerously exposed when the financial crisis hit, bringing about RBS' near-collapse and devastation in the banking sector.
Bernie Madoff (03 of04)
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Bernard "Bernie" Madoff was a top American financier and darling of the financial world, until he was arrested over charges - to which he later admitted - of fraud.Madoff admitted to operating a Ponzi scheme defrauding investors of billions of dollars in what is considered to be the largest financial fraud in American history.He was later sentenced to 150 years in jail in 2009.
Robert Peston (04 of04)
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To comment on the financial maelstrom, the BBC's Robert Peston stood out like no other. The business editor's impeccable sources and scoops meant he broke many of the crucial twists and turns of the financial crisis before anyone else, like the collapse of the Northern Rock bank.He has now been picked to replace Stephanie Flanders as the BBC's economics editor, after she left to join JP Morgan.
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