A graphic design friend of mine passed along this little flash animation. It makes the basics of the credit crisis incredibly clear. I figured folks here would enjoy watching it, too!
I was going to embed it, but I can't seem to figure out how to do that. So here's a link:
http://www.crisisofcredit.com/
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What do you think of the animation?
Did it put the crisis in perspective for you?
Did you find it too simple?
Did it keep your interest?
How many people really will benefit from this level of instruction?
Do you want to vent about your opinions? Bash it? Want to explain its virtues or pitfalls from an investment professional or educational perspective?
Have at it!
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This flash did a wonderful job of clarifying the concepts for me. A lot of the ideas I'd heard before, such as banks buying sub-prime mortgages and so on. But this animation put it into more of a big-picture, incredibly simple-to-understand format. No frills, just basic. It did seem a bit too simple, there of course is more to it, such as homeowners also being investors. It did bother me a bit that they made all of the bank guys and investment guys varying degrees of fat greedy guys who don't quite seem human - when in fact they're very real people with interesting problems to deal with on a daily basis. Their depiction of the family purchasing a home with a sub-prime mortgage is also rather horrifying. I'm not sure why people equate four children with poverty, smoking, tatoos and alcoholism, but that's not usually the case. Many of the people who defaulted on their lones were responsible people who were simply uneducated on the complexity of owning their own homes.
Demonizing investors? Come on, everyone's doing it...
Demonizing the uneducated, gulible poor? Come on, everyone's doing it... sure they have tatoos and they smoke. There aren't any good pople out there who have tatoos and who smoke. I'm going to put it into my flash! I'm going to put these into my flash! Er... yeah. Ok. Let's reinforce negative stereotypes. That's healthy