The financial tsunami is also called the subprime mortgage crisis

In the United States, loans are a very common phenomenon, from houses to cars, from credit cards to phone bills, loans are everywhere. Locals rarely buy houses with full payment and usually take out long-term loans. But we also know that unemployment and re-employment are very common here. How can these people with unstable or even no income buy a house? Because their credit rating is not up to standard, they are defined as subprime lenders.

Starting about ten years ago, at that time, advertisements from loan companies appeared on TV, in newspapers, on the streets, or filled your mailbox with tempting flyers: "Have you ever thought about becoming a middle-class person?" Want a classy life? Buy a house! "Don't have enough savings? Get a loan!" "Don't have any income?" "Can't afford the down payment?" "Worry about the high interest rate? We offer a preferential interest rate of 3% for the first two years! "It doesn't matter if you still can't afford it every month. You only need to pay interest for the first 24 months, and the principal of the loan can be paid after two years!" You must have found a job or been promoted to a manager in the end, and you are still afraid that you will not be able to pay it back in two years? The house has increased much more than it did two years ago. If you sell it to someone else, not only will you live in it for free for two years, but you may also make a fortune! Besides, it doesn’t cost you any money, so I believe you can do it. I dare to borrow money, but you don’t dare to borrow it?”

Under such temptation, countless American citizens have chosen to buy houses without hesitation. (Are you worried about their debt in two years? American citizens who have always felt good about themselves will tell you that anyone who acts in movies can become governor. Maybe I can run for president in two years.)

< p>Aniu Loan Company has achieved amazing results in just a few months, but the money has been loaned out, can it be recovered? The chairman of the company, Mr. Aniu, is also a figure who is familiar with the economic history of the United States. It is impossible not to know that the real estate market also has risks, so it seems that this profit cannot be kept alone, and a partner must be found to share the risks. So Aniu found the leading big brother in the American economic circle-the investment bank. These guys are all bosses with famous names (Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan). What do they do every day? Even if I am full, I am still idle, so I hired Nobel economists and Harvard professors, used the latest economic data models, and after some tinkering, I came up with several analysis reports to evaluate a certain stock. Is it worth buying? There is already a bubble in the stock market of a certain country. A group of people are cheating and drinking in the risk assessment market. Do you think they see any risks in this? You can even see it with your feet! But there is profit, so why are you hesitating? Let’s take over! So after economists and university professors used data models and evaluation methods, they repackaged it and came up with a new product - CDO (Note: Collateralized Debt Obligation, collateralized debt obligations). To put it bluntly, it is a bond. Through the issuance and Selling this CDO bond allows the bond holders to share the risk of the home loan.

If you just sell it like this, the risk is too high and no one will buy it. Assume that the original bond risk level is 6, which is medium to high. So the investment bank divided it into two parts: senior CDO and ordinary CDO. When a debt crisis occurs, senior CDO has the priority to pay compensation. In this way, the risk levels of the two parts become 4 and 8 respectively. The total risk remains unchanged, but the former is a medium-low risk bond. With the investment bank's "gold" tongue, of course it sold a lot of money! But what about the remaining high-risk bonds with risk level 8?

So the investment bank found a hedge fund. Who are hedge funds? They are the ones who buy short and sell long in the financial world around the world. They live a life of licking blood. Such risks are trivial. ! So relying on old relationships, we borrowed money from banks with the lowest interest rates around the world, and then bought these ordinary CDO bonds in large quantities. Before 2006, the Bank of Japan loan interest rate was only 1.5%; the ordinary CDO interest rate may reach 12%. So hedge funds are making a lot of money just from interest spreads.

As a result, something wonderful happened. At the end of 2001, real estate in the United States soared, more than doubling in just a few years. It was like the advertisement at the beginning of Aniu Loan Company , there will be no problem of not being able to pay back the house payment. Even if you don't have the money to pay back, you can still make a lot of money by selling the house. The result is that everyone from the people who took out loans to buy houses, to Aniu Loan Company, to major investment banks, to hedge funds, all make money, but the investment banks are not too happy! At first, I thought that ordinary CDOs were too risky, so I threw them to hedge funds. Unexpectedly, these guys made more than me, and their net worth kept rising. I knew I would keep it for fun, so investment banks also started buying hedge funds. , planning to take a share of the pie. It's like "Old Hei" had some sour food at home, and he happened to see the annoying little flower dog next door. He originally planned to poison it, but he didn't expect that the little flower dog was not only fine after eating it, but also grew stronger and stronger. " "Lao Hei" was confused now. Could it be that sour food is more nutritious, so he started to eat it too!

This time the hedge funds are extremely happy again. Who are they? They have 1 yuan in hand and can find a way to borrow 10 yuan for fun. Now they are paying back the sought-after CDO. Can you be honest? So they mortgaged their CDO bonds to banks in exchange for 10 times the loan, and then continued to chase investment banks to buy ordinary CDOs. Hey, we signed the agreement, and these CDOs belong to us! ! ! The investment banks were unhappy. In addition to continuing to buy hedge funds, they came up with a new product called CDS (Note: Credit Default Swap). Well, Wall Street is the hotbed of these genius products: Don’t we all think that the original CDO has high risks? Then I’ll take out insurance and take part of the money from the CDO as a deposit every year and give it to the insurance company for nothing. But if there is a risk in the future, everyone will bear it together.

Insurance companies think, that’s good. CDOs are making so much money now, and they share the profits without spending a penny. Isn’t this giving us free money every year? Done! Hedge funds think, good, they have been making money for a few years, and the risks will become bigger and bigger in the future. Just share a part of the profits, and insurance companies will bear half of the risks, so do it!

So everyone was happy again, and CDS became popular! But things are not over yet: because the "smart" Wall Streeters have come up with innovative products based on CDS! Let's assume that CDS has brought us 5 billion yuan in income. Now I have launched a new "Sanmao" fund. This fund is specifically invested in buying CDS. Obviously, the risk of this fund based on a series of previous products is It is very high, but I have invested the 5 billion yuan I have earned before as a deposit. If this fund suffers a loss, then use this 5 billion yuan to advance. Only when the 5 billion yuan is lost, your investment principal will start. Loss, but before that you can redeem it in advance, the initial scale is 50 billion yuan. Oh my god, is there any fund more exciting than this? If you buy a fund with a face value of 1 yuan, you will not lose your own money even if it loses 0.90 yuan, but every penny you make will be yours! When the rating agencies saw this genius idea, they did not hesitate: give it a AAA rating!

As a result, this "three cents" sold like crazy. Various pension funds, education funds, financial products, and even banks from other countries also bought it. Although the initial scale was originally 50 billion yuan, it is impossible to estimate how many billions were subsequently issued, but the deposit of 5 billion yuan has not changed. If the current scale is 500 billion yuan, then the margin can only guarantee that you will not lose money when the net value of the fund is not less than 0.99 yuan.

When the time came to the end of 2006, American real estate, which had been prosperous for five years, finally fell heavily from its peak, and the food chain finally began to break. Due to the fall in housing prices, after the preferential loan interest rate expired, first ordinary people were unable to repay their loans, then Aniu Loan Company collapsed, and hedge funds suffered huge losses, which in turn affected insurance companies and loan banks. Citigroup and Morgan successively issued huge loss reports. At the same time, Major investment banks that invested in hedge funds also suffered losses, and then the stock market plummeted. People generally lost money, and the number of people who were unable to repay their mortgages continued to increase... Eventually, the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis broke out.