Anyone even marginally intelligent can finally understand the the basics of the credit crisis and the esoteric financial terms being bandied about these days, like sub-prime mortgages, CDO’s and Credit Default Swaps with this brilliantly simple animation by Jonathan Jarvis. Hopefully if enough people understand how the economy got into the toilet we’ll see the train coming at us the next time around.

We have a wannabe novelist coming up with headlines at the Indian Express. I’ve written before about the ridiculous amount of Obama mania in India but this is just getting out of hand.

About a month ago, after he was confirmed as ‘President Elect’ our country went into a huge tizzy about how he hadn’t made an official call to India and for days ‘pundits’ were weighing in with ‘expert opinions’ about it. ‘India is important’, ‘He will call us last’ Gimme a fucking break.

How many people who watched the inauguration yesterday know a single thing about Mr Obama? Quick question. Which group was the biggest single contributor to Obama’s campaign fund? Stumped?

It was the sub-prime mortgage lenders. Does the term ‘sub-prime crisis’ ring a bell?

Obama’s campaign finance manager?  

Penny Pritzker. She used to be at the head of one of the larger sub-prime lenders, Superior Bank. Federal regulators closed the 2.3 million US $ bank in 2001. The bank’s borrowers and depositors suffered huge losses. The bank’s owners (Pritzker included) of course, could still end up making a profit from the bank’s collapse. There have been legal charges including allegations of racketeering levelled against them.

You think any of this will matter now that Mr. Obama is el presidenté? 

No fucking way.