Are HN-ers still largely in the dark about what happened inside of a CDO^2? What happened to all of those mortgages the treasury bought?
What still doesn't make sense to you about the financial crisis?
Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
#2A lot, but the This American Life series on it was incredibly well done. Definitely better reporting than any other news agency out there.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/t...
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/375/b...
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/365/A...
*My personal favorite -http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/i...
Re: Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
#3A lot, but the This American Life series on it was incredibly well done. Definitely better reporting than any other news agency out there. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/t... http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/375/b... http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/365/A... *My personal favorite - http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/i...
The Magnetar trade was fascinating, and I humbly submit that any reporting done by This American Life is likely to be better reporting than any other news agency out there.
Re: Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
#4A parallel reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/d34k0/what_do_you...
Re: Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
#5If mortgage paper was trading for much less than face value why not allow people to buy their debt back? Thereby creating increased demand for the "worthless assets"; at the very least it would have created a pretty solid floor for the value of these types of investments.
It also would've helped the freefalling house values because it would have given underwater homeowners a chance to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
We all ended up buying the debt back anyway, we just used the federal government to do it.
Re: Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
#6One thing that bothers me is why job creation hasn't started up again. Only reason I could come up with is that companies don't need more employees, they manage with what they have. I'm guessing that productivity is increasing.
Re: Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
#7If mortgage paper was trading for much less than face value why not allow people to buy their debt back? Thereby creating increased demand for the "worthless assets"; at the very least it would have created a pretty solid floor for the value of these types of investments. It also would've helped the freefalling house values because it would have given underwater homeowners a chance to be part of the solution rather t…
This is a great question: I am working on getting you an answer from a derivatives expert.
I suspect the reason has to do with difficulty inherent to unbundling existing derivatives contracts in order to isolate "your" mortgage, but I'll circle back when I get an expert opinion.
Re: Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
#8If mortgage paper was trading for much less than face value why not allow people to buy their debt back? Thereby creating increased demand for the "worthless assets"; at the very least it would have created a pretty solid floor for the value of these types of investments. It also would've helped the freefalling house values because it would have given underwater homeowners a chance to be part of the solution rather t…
Buy it back with what? Nearly everyone would need to get another mortgage to buy back their debt.
Re: Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
#9If mortgage paper was trading for much less than face value why not allow people to buy their debt back? Thereby creating increased demand for the "worthless assets"; at the very least it would have created a pretty solid floor for the value of these types of investments. It also would've helped the freefalling house values because it would have given underwater homeowners a chance to be part of the solution rather t…
Buy it back with what? Nearly everyone would need to get another mortgage to buy back their debt.
What if we had taken the bailout money and simply paid the debt directly back, instead of lending it to the lenders, and leaving the original debt still in tact. Wouldn't the companies have been saved as well as the debtors if we had simply paid back the mortages with the bailout money?
Re: Ask HN: What do you still not understand about the Financial Crisis?
#10Why does the period of economical growth is inevitably followed by recession/depression?
Why is it not possible to, maybe, regulate the economy so that economical growth would be slightly slower during the growth period, but use that artificial slowness to cushion the potential recessions?
(Probably sounds very amateurish, but I have no economics background further than reading "Marketing" by Kotler)