I read a series of articles around the sub-prime fiasco. BBC presented a nice depiction of the problem:
BBC NEWS | Business | The US sub-prime crisis in graphics Annotated
In the article: Frontline: the wall street fix: mr. weill goes to washington: the long demise of glass-steagall, PBS talks about how a governance framework was put in place following the great crash in 1929 and then how it was subsequently dismantled through the 1980’s and 1990’s.
There are indications that this is a 2 trillion dollar problem and 50% of that may be at risk.
In the BBC News article Credit woes ‘need private action’Annotated they observe Countrywide’s announced a plan to help 80,000 borrowers with $16bn in outstanding mortgages to renegotiate terms. Elsewhere, BBC reports on the Bush plan to freeze rates on sub-prime mortgages for five years. Bush details housing rescue planAnnotated
It all sounds fine until one reflects on the 5 year time line (is it going to take that long to resolve?) and the magnitude of the exposure (is it up to 1 trillion dollars?).
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