The crucial question is this: Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear in any case, they weren’t talking. The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year, in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn’t shine, and the SEC doesn’t dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower and middle-class Americans who can’t pay their debts. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. Featuring an Exclusive Audio Interview with Michael Lewis
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |