A primer on the mortgage crisis

Tuttle suggests that "readers of your blog (there are others besides me, right?) [ed. note: yes. sometimes my mother logs on] who didn't quite understand everything going on with the credit crisis might be interested in these:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27Credit-t.html A NY Times magazine article by Roger Lowenstein about the credit rating agencies, and why all those CDOs blew up.

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242 An episode of This American Life that follows mortages from the lender to the borrower to the brokerage firm that packages them to the investors who buy and sell them. "

He's right... interesting background, both.

And frustrating that the bond rating services are passing the buck to "the mortgage holders who turned out to be deadbeats." Since the fault, of course, lies with the folks who were offered something too good to be true and (oh! terrible unethical act!) took it. Where are the economists preaching the gospel of The Rational Actor when you need them?