Great reporting on subprime mortgage crisis
I am on vacation this week which means I have some time for some good reading. And although I plan to spend my week finishing up the 3rd book in Stieg Larsen’s Millenium Series I wanted to post a couple bits of excellent journalism for those who might be looking for some summer-time reading on the subprime mortgage crisis.
First, I want to thank Kevin Sanger @ the JGP Wealth Management Group for sharing THIS ARTICLE with me almost a year ago. Yes, a year ago, and I finally sat down and read it last week. Michael Lewis dives deep into the fund managers that bet against subprime mortgages and struck it rich. These managers realized that the folks who were investing in subprime-backed mortgages had no idea what they were buying and saw that it would unravel. It is a great insider look into the secondary market for mortgage-backed bonds.
Also, NPR’s Planet Money bought a sub-prime mortgage backed bond a few months ago and have been reporting on it periodically. In these two podcasts (#1 and #2) they fly to Florida to confront some of the mortgage holders who owe them money AND report on a $200 million fraud scheme.