Does this mean polyester's coming back into style?

[ivyfic]

This week's This American Life is on the sub-prime mortgage crisis. I've never had it explained to me in a way that made sense before, but this is really good reporting. And jesus, I had no idea how bad it really was. I'd be interested if any of you who have been paying attention to this stuff can say how good an analysis this is.

As they point out, people of my generation have never been alive when the U.S. economy wasn't growing. When I was hearing about this initially, I was just figuring it was something like the recession after the dot-com bubble burst, but they're pointing out that this is more like the recession in the seventies. You know, the one with stagflation, gas rationing and a general sense of malaise? Yeah. Welcome back to the seventies.

Comments

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

The really pathetic thing? When I interned in fixed income at Bear in the summer of 2004, they knew the bubble was going to pop. Remember Bear? The one that doesn't exist anymore because they did such crazy-stupid tranching?

Yeah, I've had a pretty good idea of how bad this was going to be. There's always a million factors involved, but it's going to be worse before it gets better again.