豆知识 2010-11-28&12-04 图说信贷危机(2/3)

 Theinvestors see this and want a piece of the action, and this gives Wall Streetan idea. They can connect the investors¹ to the homeowners through mortgages.

Here’show it works.

A familywants a house, so they save for a downpayment, and contact the mortgage broker². The mortgage broker connects thefamily to a lender, who gives him a mortgage. The broker makes a nicecommission. The family buys a house and becomes homeowners. This is great forthem because housing prices have been rising practically forever. Everythingworks out nicely.

One daythe lender gets a call from an investment banker, who wants to buy themortgage. The lender sells it to him for a very nice fee. The investment bankerthen borrows millions of dollars and buys thousands more mortgages and putsthem into a nice little box. This means that every month he gets the paymentsfrom the homeowners of all the mortgages in the box. Then he seeks his bankerwizards on it to work their financial magic, which is basically cutting it intothree slices: safe, okay and risky³. They pack the slices back up in the box andcall it a collateralized debt obligation,or CDO.

A CDOworks like three cascading⁴ trays. Asmoney comes in, the top tray fills first, then spills over into the middle, andwhatever is left into the bottom. The money comes from homeowners paying offtheir mortgages. If some owners don’t pay and default on their mortgage, lessmoney comes in and the bottom tray may not get filled. This makes the bottom trayriskier, and the top tray safer. To compensate⁵ for the higher risk, the bottomtree receives a higher rate of return while the top receives a lower, but stillnice return. To make the top even safer, banks will insure it for a small feecalled a credit default swap⁶.

Thebanks do all of these works so the credit rating agencies will stamp the topslice as a safe triple A rated investment, the highest, safest rating there is.The okay slice is triple B, still pretty good, and they don’t bother to ratethe risky slice. Because of the triple A rating, the investment banker can sellthe safe slice to the investors who only want safe investments. He sells the okayslice to other bankers and the risky slices to hedge funds and otherrisk-takers. The investment banker makes millions. He then repays his loans. 

Finallythe investors have found a good investment for their money, much better thanthe 1% treasury⁷ bills. They are so pleased they want more CDO slices. So theinvestment banker calls up the lender, wanting more mortgages. The lender callsup the broker for more homeowners. But the broker can’t find anyone. Everyonethat qualifies for a mortgage already has one. But they have an idea. 

Whenhomeowners default on their mortgage, the lender gets the house. And houses arealways increasing in value. Since they’re covered if the homeowners default,lenders can start adding risk to new mortgages: not requiring down payments, noproof of income, no documents at all. And that’s exactly what they did. Soinstead of lending to responsible homeowners, called prime mortgages, they started to get some that were, well, lessresponsible. These are sub-primemortgages.

This isthe turning point.

1 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

2 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。

3 risky   

adj.有风险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险，但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
• He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。

4 cascading   

流注( cascade的现在分词 )； 大量落下； 大量垂悬； 梯流

参考例句：

• First of all, cascading menus are to be avoided at all costs. 首先，无论如何都要避免使用级联菜单。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Her sounds began cascading gently. 他的声音开始缓缓地低落下来。

5 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

6 swap   

n.交换；vt.交换，用...作交易

参考例句：

• I will swap you my bicycle for your radio.我想拿我的自行车换你的收音机。
• This comic was a swap that I got from Nick.这本漫画书是我从尼克那里换来的。

7 treasury   

n.宝库；国库，金库；文库

参考例句：

• The Treasury was opposed in principle to the proposals.财政部原则上反对这些提案。
• This book is a treasury of useful information.这本书是有价值的信息宝库。