The Giant Pool of Money. This American Life teams up with NPR News to explain the Housing Crisis.
posted on May 11, 2008 - View this thread

As is the custom these days, GMAC Bank is suing mortgage broker HTFC for selling them improperly secured loans. The deposition of HTFC's CEO Aron Wider reads like a Joe Pesci role with 73 creative uses of the f-word over twelve hours of testimony. A federal judge fined Mr. Wider and his attorney $29K for Mr. Wider's constant use of bad language, insults, refusals to answer questions, and his lawyer's failure to control his client.
posted on Mar 20, 2008 - View this thread

The Subprime Primer. [via] An entertaining, lo-fi, comic-book style explanation of the complex Subprime Mortgage mess.
posted on Feb 17, 2008 - View this thread

Yes, the Subprime Mortgage Crisis was 2007's top national business news story for the second year in a row (and odds on favorite to Threepeat), #2 news story overall (TIME put Pakistan at #1, for AP, it was the Virginia State Massacre). But then I saw that it was the #1 local news story in my town.
posted on Jan 4, 2008 - View this thread

Minsky Meltdown ahead? Named after Hyman Minsky, an economist who was known for his research concerning financial crises, specifically asset bubbles based on credit cycles. [much more inside]
posted on Aug 29, 2007 - View this thread

What's the link between:
1) the quickly-growing number of American homeowners becoming unable to pay their mortgages after their ARM's reset (a trend nicknamed "ARMageddon" -- applicable in the UK too), which is translating into soaring foreclosure rates, and in turn forcing at least 60 US semi-shady mortgage brokers to go belly-up in the past year (i.e. the "subprime meltdown"), and...
2) the recent implosion and impending financial bailout -- which may become the biggest since the Long Term Capital Management fiasco of 1998 -- of two Bear Stearns hedge funds which dealt in mortgage securities? [more inside]
posted on Jul 11, 2007 - View this thread