The crisis explained in words of one or two syllables

You’ve got to love an economics video that uses ABBA for its background music.  You’ve also got to love an economics video that uses very simple language to show that Obama has been a very good friend to Fannie and Freddie, and they’ve loved him back, to the profound detriment of the American people:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiEWCnpNnBQ[/youtube]

Incidentally, I know people who were the beneficiaries of these types of loans.  They were good people, but they got in way over their heads financially.  When I queried why they were doing this, their response was, essentially, “Because we can.  If the bank is going to give us the money, why shouldn’t we take it?”

What I thought, but didn’t say, was” Well, you shouldn’t take it because, even if the bank is being stupid, you shouldn’t be.  It’s unlikely that you can service these loans, and you’re going to end up, at best, with a destroyed credit rating and, at worst, completely bankrupt.”  And indeed, the credit rating is gone, and bankruptcy is imminent.

As I said, my friends aren’t bad people.  They truly believed that, if the bank trusted them with the money, everything was going to be golden.  It didn’t occur to my friends that they had to apply some of their common sense and life experience to determining whether they were doing something wise.

I bet that scenario played out in hundreds of thousands of households across America.

H/t:  Danny Lemieux