For a year or so now our media has been engaged in briefing us on the major downturns our various economies are experiencing. The reader of entertainment periodicals may have noticed that “gossips come with figures”, front pages may no more carry glamorous or pre-possessive images, but bare the ugly faces. Financial terminology and awareness is gaining a sharp edge in our daily lives. Wall street and Piazza Affari news have gained enormous attention and Nasdaq and Dow Jones averages seem to be finally understood by a majority of you and me. Some ads feature abandoned dogs who have been hit by the current financial crisis as well.
We(youth) seem to have contributed very little to this financial fiasco, so why not lean back and let those who created the mess wipe it out? The only thing is, it deviates from the idea of a domestic issue, which maybe solved by one man or just a group of elites. It entails us all, young-old, black-white, blonde-brunette, fat-lean, tall-short. A thing about economic mishaps is, they all follow the scientific idea of a chain-reaction, or the classical economical definition of the multiplier-effect. It is in fact the aut simul stabunt aut simul cadent rule (“we stand together, we fall together”).
So where did it all begin, to whom may causation be attributed? Permit me to use a bit of technical words or jargons which I may not be well-acquainted to either.
The initial financial crisis may be considered to have borne roots from the then embryonic subprime mortgage crisis( crisis which shot-up due to making of loans to borrowers who did not qualify for market interest rates owing to various risk factors, such as income level, size of the down payment made, credit history, and employment status). This subprime lending was of course not intended to have incited the crisis, however a couple of things did not fall in place.
Originally, the banks who lent out money on subprime bases were to bear all risk involved, but a concept of...