Some time has passed since taking my macro/micro economics courses, and quite frankly I was never a numbers guy… So trying to understand how an investment bank that was founded in 1850 ends up broke – intrigues and troubles me, at the same time. So far, our local stock market has proven its strength, dropping only 3.8% this Sunday, following some hugh drops in European, US and far-East markets.
One of the blogs I follow is PresentationZen, by Garr Reynolds. Garr posted this very ‘web 0.0’ video of Paddy Hirsch, a senior editor at Marketplace, who explains (on a whiteboard, with Mr. line-like-men) in 6min what CDOs are all about, and why they are the main reason for the current crisis.
There are two more videos from Paddy, highly recommended:
Untangling credit default swaps
Untangling credit default swaps from Marketplace on Vimeo.
The credit crisis as Antarctic Expedition
The credit crisis as Antarctic expedition from Marketplace on Vimeo.