豆知识 2010-12-05&12-11 图说信贷危机(3/3)

 So just like always, the mortgage brokerconnects the family with a lender and a mortgage making his commission. Thefamily buys a big house. The lender sells the mortgage to the investmentbanker, who turns it into a CDO, and sells slices to the investors³ and others.This actually works out nicely for everyone that makes them all rich. No onewas worried because as soon as they sold the mortgage to the next guy, it washis problem. If the homeowners were to default, they didn’t care; they wereselling off their risk to the next guy and making millions, like playing hotpotato with a time bomb.

Not surprisingly, the homeowners defaulton their mortgage which at this moment is owned by the banker. This means heforecloses, and one of his monthly payments turns into a house. No big deal, heputs it up for sale. But more and more of his monthly payments turn intohouses. Now there are so many houses for sale on the market, creating moresupply than there is demand, and housing prices aren’t rising any more. In fact,they plummet⁴.

This creates an interesting problem forhomeowners still paying their mortgages. As all the houses in theirneighborhood go up for sale, the value of their house goes down. And they startto wonder why they’re paying back their $300,000 mortgage when the house is nowworth only $90,000. They decide that it doesn’t make sense to continue paying,even though they can afford to. And they walk away from their house, defaultrates sweep the country and prices plummet.

Now the investment banker is basicallyholding a box full of worthless houses. He calls up his buddy⁵ the investor² tosell his CDO, but the investor isn’t stupid, and says:”No, thanks.” He knowsthat the stream of money isn’t even a drippleany more.

The banker tries to sell to everyone butnobody wants to buy his bomb. He is freaking out because he borrowed millions,sometimes billions of dollars to buy this bomb and he can’t pay it back.Whatever he tries, he can’t get rid of it.

But he’s not the only one. The investorshave already bought thousands of these bombs. The lender calls up trying tosell his mortgage but the banker won’t buy it. And the broker¹ is out of work.The whole financial system is frozen and things get dark. Everybody startsgoing bankrupt.

But that’s not all. The investor calls upthe homeowner and tells them their investments are worthless. And you can beginto see how the crisis flows in a cycle.

Welcome to the crisis of credit.

1 broker   

n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排

参考例句：

• He baited the broker by promises of higher commissions.他答应给更高的佣金来引诱那位经纪人。
• I'm a real estate broker.我是不动产经纪人。

2 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

3 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

4 plummet   

vi.(价格、水平等)骤然下跌；n.铅坠；重压物

参考例句：

• Mengniu and Yili have seen their shares plummet since the incident broke.自事件发生以来，蒙牛和伊利的股票大幅下跌。
• Even if rice prices were to plummet,other brakes on poverty alleviation remain.就算大米价格下跌，其它阻止导致贫困的因素仍然存在。

5 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！