Word: toxicants
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When treasury secretary Tim Geithner rolled out his long-awaited plan for buying up toxic mortgage loans and securities on March 23, reaction was split. Financial markets cheered, with the Dow Jones industrial average rocketing 497 points, or 6.8%, on the day. The chattering classes mostly grumbled, with Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman gloomily leading the way: "It fills me with a sense of despair," he wrote of the plan before it was released but after many details had leaked...
...value, only a reduced value. Unfortunately, banks, in an effort to increase their investment returns, exacerbated the problem by using enormous leverage to purchase and securitize mortgage loans. Thus, even if MBS's value declined because of defaults, because of the use of leverage, the security could still be toxic to the bank...
...Finally, the seemingly unprecedented drop in prices together with increased default rates made it nearly impossible to assign value to MBS. As a consequence, MBS that had some intrinsic value were illiquid, and banks were forced to keep the toxic assets on their balance sheets...
...funds and private equity firms. In their new jobs, they can take advantage of the government's programs to buy newly financed assets and, if the value of that paper improves along with the market's liquidity, the profits from the transactions could be stupendous. As the value of toxic assets comes full circle, many of the people who helped break the system can make huge sums while they help...
...stock market, sending the Dow Jones industrial average up nearly 500 points, the fourth best day of trading since 1933 (though many economists still had doubts about it). At least half the questions Tuesday were forward-looking, centered on the particulars of the public/private partnership plan to get toxic assets off the books of banks...