Ward on Words

I will be the first to admit that I am a CDO ignoramus. After a year of research, I still can't figure out how collateralized debt obligations work or why we need them. What I find mystifying is the opacity of the offering. And from what I understand, we have not only CDOs that we can buy, but synthetic CDOs, which, as far as I can tell, function as a sellable mirage of the original CDO, which is itself a bunch of debt lumped into various tranches of different risk classes. But apparently we need this kind of innovation - regulations for the financial sector would squash this kind of innovation, so we're told, and then the market for Ferraris would drop significantly. (JUST KIDDING about those Ferraris!) In my search for knowledge, I find myself exploring all sorts of econ blogs - enjoying the journey while remaining mystified by the CDO conundrum. So I read with interest the latest post on the Economics of Contempt blog - " On Goldman and synthetic CDOs." ...

I was an American Studies major in college, which I've lately realized does not give me the expertise in finance needed to figure out what has gone wrong with our economy.  Waiting until after the market crashes is probably not the best time for a crash course in new vocabulary terms like "credit default swaps" and "collateralized debt obligations." If only I'd gotten an MBA instead of an MFA! From my rudimentary research, credit default swaps (CDS) are contracts that promise to cover losses on securities in the event of default.  But apparently, as we have all learned, people who own these contracts don't necessarily have the money to cover losses should a default occur.   Apparently people bought and sold the idea of money without actually having any money to back it up. Visualizing the Vague In all honesty, I have not been able to uncover what it means to own a collateralized debt obligation.  But you can read more about it here in this nifty int...