That’s brilliant. My dad is a residential real estate developer. Yeah, my parents are totally excited right now. Not. Although he isn’t directly affected by sub-prime (though several houses in my parents neighborhood have defaulted and had to sell at auction), the ensuing crisis has totally killed the new buyer market, because no one wants to buy — and so they’ve got all these lots with no one building, or even worse, completed houses with no buyers. And we weren’t even affected by the bubble!

It’s so sick too because I saw all of this stuff coming years ago, and I even made comments about it to my dad and his business partners (more his partners than him because I learned long ago that my dad is an amazing salesman but like, not the best person to discuss actual business with) - but was told not too worry my pretty little head about such matters and that the men knew what they were doing. The banks approved these God-awful loans, which were then somehow sold as securities and all of this was riding on people convinced that they could double their money by flipping houses or not understanding that an interest-only loan for X years means they have to start making actual income to afford it once it switches.

*sigh*

Well your pretty little head had it on the nose (no pun intended of course; albeit a very cute nose). Nothing but the manifestation of the greater fool theory, I say. Every day someone talks about how shocked they are or surprised, I react, “What?!? What didn’t see this coming??” Amazing how we repeat history over and over and over again . . . very sad.