I have an outsider's interest in the unfolding credit crisis. I say "outsider" because I do not have a mortgage, am debt-free, own no stocks, and, since I work in academia, am insulated from most of the volatility in the job market. Nevertheless, I have followed the details of the crisis ever since reading about credit default swaps in a California laundromat during the summer of 2007. That is why I would like to save the following from in case I need a quick summary in conversation.
The most significant causes of the credit crisis were innovation in mortgage securitization coupled with almost no regulatory oversight (because of ideologues who opposed oversight and regulation). This led to lax lending standards (liar loans, DAPs, widespread use of Option ARMs as affordability products, etc.) and excessive speculation.
To find out what some of those terms mean, I recommend listening to the following two (slightly out-of-date) stories from This American Life:
The following photomosaic is made up of almost 15,000 images contributed and assembled by several of my CS friends (click to enlarge):
The full-size PNG takes up 86.1 MB and measures 6,000 pixels wide by 9,009 pixels high. The small portion below shows the constituent images at full resolution.
The source image and many of the constituent images come from when when Josh, Alejandro, Zack, Lucas, and I traveled to New York last Christmas. Josh, I am told, contributed many additional pictures, and Alejandro created the mosaic using . Then, they printed, framed, and gave it to me two weekends ago when I finally got a chance to visit Champaign after being away for almost two months. It is almost life-size! What a great gift!
