Background and video of derivatives crisis 25

The bible for understanding this financial mess is A Demon of Our Own Design by Richard Bookstaber (Wiley, 2007) ISBN 978-0-471-22727-4

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There is a lecture on youtube that follows a slightly earlier version of the timeline, explaining terminology and events in greater detail. Since the lecture if about 70 minutes long and youtube does not permit videos of longer than ten minutes, it has been edited into eight different pieces. The 8 youtube videos on derivatives as explained by the blog author (filmed May, 2009) are at these links:

First video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DHpD3xrstE

Second video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFiSppGv-Ms&feature=related

Third video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eHTvR_75Lw&feature=related

Fourth video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRqcrySZDw&feature=related

Fifth video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVA3-K6ISVo&feature=related

Sixth video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pUIZgJ5Z4&feature=related

Seventh video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gMKF5tapIQ&feature=related

Eighth video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSII2JvRdHQ&feature=related

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Time magazine has a list of the 25 men most responsible for the crisis. This list is shaded to reflect, I believe falsely, that the crisis began and remains, essentially, a mortgage crisis abetted by bundling mortgages and derivative instruments on those mortgages. That represents a significant chuck of worldwide derivatives, perhaps 35%. But most of the bets and dangers were placed elsewhere.

25 People To Blame for the Financial Crisis

The good intentions, bad managers and greed behind the meltdown

Full List
Blameworthy

Angelo Mozilo

Phil Gramm
Alan Greenspan
Chris Cox
American Consumers
Hank Paulson
Joe Cassano
Ian McCarthy
Frank Raines
Kathleen Corbet
Dick Fuld
Marion and Herbert Sandler
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Stan O'Neal
Wen Jiabao
Davi Lereah
John Devaney
Bernie Madhoff
Lew Ranieri
Burton Jablin
Fred Goodwin
Sandy Weill
DavidOddsson
Jimmy Cayne

--from TIME. This list is still on line at
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1877351,00.html

This list mistakenly leaves out Senate banking committee chairman Chris Dodd and House banking committee chairman Barney Frank. Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, is also a key player in the genesis of the crisis. Angelo Mazilo, former CEO of mortgage lender Countrywide, and Bernie Madhoff, a financier and investor, are both properly in jail, having been convicted of fraud charges.

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further information is available by emailing your snail mail address to ed.binns@gmail.com .  You will receive a data CD consisting of the dozens of published articles used to develop the video lecture, which itself was a presentation at the conclusion of a "desk audit" of the crisis.