September 2008: Financial collapse of financial markets begins with state funds losing $5 billion. It is estimated that bills sponsored by Senator Carraro and Representative Varela restructuring the state investments three years prior has saved the state $2.5 billion in the current crisis.

August 18, 2008: Senator Carraro is the only Senator voting against a rebate bill authorizing $55 million of an estimated state surplus, giving the average taxpayer approximately a $50 dollar rebate. Carraro provides statements of a future financial crisis due to miscalculations of energy prices and the effects of lower gross receipts revenues, as well as a pending national and possible international financial collapse. Due to the overwhelming support to spend the supposed surplus monies, Carraro offers using that money to solve part of the health care problems facing the state, and save the state future expenses. He sponsored a bill to offer free screening, diagnosis, and treatment for all New Mexicans for breast cancer, colon cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer and stroke. Analysis indicated that over a three year period that thousands of lives would be saved and over $100 million would be saved to the state.

August 15, 2008: State Senator Joseph Carraro warns New Mexico Senate that the country is currently in a recession and will experience a severe economic collapse.

June, 2008: Senator Carraro, former Chairman of the Investments and Pensions Oversight Committee, warns that Committee and the heads of the State's Investment and Pension Funds that a pending financial collapse is becoming evident. He suggests that all funds sell down their equity positions and transfer funds to fixed assets, even treasury bills. He states that stock market could crash losing as much as 25% of its value. He is informed by fund mangers that they are in the market for the long-term that anticipates swings in the market. Carraro answers that by selling now, those funds will be available to buy when the market bottoms out, thus allowing the corpus of funds to increase substantially rather than lose much of their value. He also referenced the last financial crisis when he gave the same unheeded advice that cost the state billions of dollars.

April, 2008: Carraro gives public speeches that the country is in a recession. He states that the typical measures and equations that were used to indicate a recession while he was in graduate school many years ago, were no longer valid, since they don’t account for the personal indebtedness incurred by the almost total use of credit to purchase everything from food to gas and even pay for mortgages. He stated that the current looming sub-prime crisis is only in its beginning stages since we haven’t begun to gauge how many different kinds of financial instruments and institutions were participating in these unsecured loans brought on by the reduction in home values.

Movie news: At 3:45 am, on the final night of the legislative session, the 25% Tax Credit Incentive bill was passed, carried forth by Senator Joe Carraro, enabling all production companies that shoot movies in New Mexico to be eligible for the savings. That amount according to NMFC statistics is now at more than $100 million dollars in savings to film makers. More than 370,000 work days have been had for local film employees, and the overall financial impact of the film industry in NM is at $1.5 billion dollars.