The “Crisis” and Super-finance Explained
Imagine, if you can, an unemployed black man sitting on a crumbling porch somewhere in Alabama in his string vest and a chap comes along and says, “Would you like to buy this house before it falls down and why don’t you let me lend you the money?”
Then this mortgage is bought by a bank and packaged together on Wall Street with a lot of other similar debts. Somehow this package of dodgy debts stops being a package of dodgy debts and starts being what we call a structured investment vehicle.
I buy it and then I will ring up somebody in Tokyo and say, “Look, I’ve got this package, do you want to buy it?” and they say, “What’s in it?” and I say, “I haven’t got the faintest idea,” and they say, “How much do you want for it?” and I say, “A hundred million dollars,” and then they say, “Fine,” and that’s it. That’s the market!
(John Bird and John Fortune – 2 famous British actors who specialise in political satire)
