December 2, 2008

Super Senior

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SUPER SENIOR….Looking for more financial geekery? Sure you are! The other day I asked Felix Salmon to explain super senior tranches for us, and today he obliges. It’s too complicated to excerpt, but the nickel version is that it became yet another way for banks to increase their exposure to subprime loans by creating a synthetic version of the subprime market that was even bigger than the original. So instead of merely idiotically missing the housing bubble and losing lots of money on supposedly safe subprime-backed CDOs, they idiotically doubled (tripled? quadrupled? who knows) their bet by creating lots of synthetic subprime CDOs and then keeping them on their own books instead of selling them off. When the crash came, then, they lost money on both the real stuff and the synthetic stuff.

The full story is here. Enjoy!

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From the desk of Mother Jones CEO, Monika Bauerlein...

Newsrooms can be funded in many ways. One of the most controversial (and volatile) ways is by a for-profit corporation or a billionaire owner. We see it across the headlines on a weekly basis: the claw backs in public media, the gutting of The Washington Post, the bending over backwards to appeal to Trump and his allies.

But not here.

When Mother Jones first started publishing 50 years ago, our founders made a critical decision: to be a reader-supported nonprofit. They knew that no corporate owner would be interested in a muckraking newsroom; they also knew that no muckraking newsroom would be interested in following the agenda of a corporate owner.

And so, we’ve been reader-funded for half a century. We rely on contributions from our readers—readers like you—whether it’s $50, or $15 a month, or whatever fits your budget. People give what they can, and every donation makes a difference for our newsroom, which has grown tremendously—in size and reach and renown—since its inception in 1976.

You may be wondering: What does it take to publish an investigation? And what does my donation actually fund? The answers are one and the same: It takes people, resources, and time. And that’s what your donation funds directly.

Every donation Mother Jones receives from readers fortifies our newsroom, whether we’re covering underreported scandals out of Washington, DC, or the most important news of the day. And right now, each donation will be doubled because of our $50,000 match. So when you make a donation—$5, $50, any amount—it’ll go twice as far.

Your support keeps us going. If you’re able, donate today.

Thanks for reading.

—Monika

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