Anytime something bad happens, it doesn't take long before blame starts to be assigned. In the instance of subprime mortgage woes, there is no single entity or individual to point the finger at. Instead, this mess is a collective creation of the world's central banks, homeowners, lenders, credit rating agencies and underwriters, and investors. Let's investigate.

The Mess
The economy was at risk of a deep recession after the dotcom bubble burst in early 2000; this situation was compounded by the September 11 terrorist attacks that followed in 2001. In response, central banks around the world tried to stimulate the economy. They created capital liquidity through a reduction in interest rates. In turn, investors sought higher returns through riskier investments. Lenders took on greater risks too, and approved subprime mortgage loans to borrowers with poor credit. Consumer demand drove the housing bubble to all-time highs in the summer of 2005, which ultimately collapsed in August of 2006. (For an in-depth discussion of these events, see The Fuel That Fed The Subprime Meltdown.)

The end result of these key events was increased foreclosure activity, large lenders and hedge funds declaring bankruptcy, and fears regarding further decreases in economic growth and consumer spending. So who's to blame? Let's take a look at the key players.

Biggest Culprit: The Lenders
Most of the blame should be pointed at the mortgage originators (lenders) for creating these problems. It was the lenders who ultimately lent funds to people with poor credit and a high risk of default. (To learn more about subprime lending, see Subprime Is Often Subpar.)

When the central banks flooded the markets with capital liquidity, it not only lowered interest rates, it also broadly depressed risk premiums as investors sought riskier opportunities to bolster their investment returns. At the same time, lenders found themselves with ample capital to lend and, like investors, an increased willingness to undertake additional risk to increase their investment returns.

In defense of the lenders, there was an increased demand for mortgages, and housing prices were increasing because interest rates had dropped substantially. At the time, lenders probably saw subprime mortgages as less of a risk than they really were: rates were low, the economy was healthy and people were making their payments.

As you can see in Figure 1, subprime mortgage originations grew from $173 billion in 2001 to a record level of $665 billion in 2005, which represented an increase of nearly 300%. There is a clear relationship between the liquidity following September 11, 2001, and subprime loan originations; lenders were clearly willing and able to provide borrowers with the necessary funds to purchase a home.



Partner In Crime: Homebuyers

While we're on the topic of lenders, we should also mention the home buyers. Many were playing an extremely risky game by buying houses they could barely afford. They were able to make these purchases with non-traditional mortgages (such as 2/28 and interest-only mortgages) that offered low introductory rates and minimal initial costs such as "no down payment". Their hope lay in price appreciation, which would have allowed them to refinance at lower rates and take the equity out of the home for use in other spending. However, instead of continued appreciation, the housing bubble burst, and prices dropped rapidly. (To learn more, read Why Housing Market Bubbles Pop.)

As a result, when their mortgages reset, many homeowners were unable to refinance their mortgages to lower rates, as there was no equity being created as housing prices fell. They were, therefore, forced to reset their mortgage at higher rates, which many could not afford. Many homeowners were simply forced to default on their mortgages. Foreclosures continued to increase through 2006 and 2007.

In their exuberance to hook more subprime borrowers, some lenders or mortgage brokers may have given the impression that there was no risk to these mortgages and that the costs weren't that high; however, at the end of the day, many borrowers simply assumed mortgages they couldn't reasonably afford. Had they not made such an aggressive purchase and assumed a less risky mortgage, the overall effects might have been manageable. (To learn about moral debate surrounding all things subprime, read Subprime Lending: Helping Hand Or Underhanded?)

Exacerbating the situation, lenders and investors of securities backed by these defaulting mortgages suffered. Lenders lost money on defaulted mortgages as they were increasingly left with property that was worth less than the amount originally loaned. In many cases, the losses were large enough to result in bankruptcy.

Investment Banks Worsen the Situation

The increased use of the secondary mortgage market by lenders added to the number of subprime loans lenders could originate. Instead of holding the originated mortgages on their books, lenders were able to simply sell off the mortgages in the secondary market and collect the originating fees. This freed up more capital for even more lending, which increased liquidity even more. The snowball began to build momentum. (For a crash course on the secondary mortgage market, check out Behind The Scenes Of Your Mortgage.)

A lot of the demand for these mortgages came from the creation of assets that pooled mortgages together into a security, such as a collateralized debt obligation (CDO). In this process, investment banks would buy the mortgages from lenders and securitize these mortgages into bonds, which were sold to investors through CDOs.

Rating Agencies: Possible Conflict of Interest

A lot of criticism has been directed at the rating agencies and underwriters of the CDOs and other mortgage-backed securities that included subprime loans in their mortgage pools. Some argue that the rating agencies should have foreseen the high default rates for subprime borrowers, and they should have given these CDOs much lower ratings than the 'AAA' rating given to the higher quality tranches. If the ratings had been more accurate, fewer investors would have bought into these securities, and the losses may not have been as bad. (To learn more on the ratings system, see What Is A Corporate Credit Rating?)

Moreover, some have pointed to the conflict of interest between rating agencies, which receive fees from a security's creator, and their ability to give an unbiased assessment of risk. The argument is that rating agencies were enticed to give better ratings in order to continue receiving service fees, or they run the risk of the underwriter going to a different rating agency (or the security not getting rated at all). However, on the flip side, it's hard to sell a security if it is not rated.

Regardless of the criticism surrounding the relationship between underwriters and rating agencies, the fact of the matter is that they were simply bringing bonds to market based on market demand.

Fuel to the Fire: Investor Behavior

Just as the homeowners are to blame for their purchases gone wrong, much of the blame also must be placed on those who invested in CDOs. Investors were the ones willing to purchase these CDOs at ridiculously low premiums over Treasury bonds. These enticingly low rates are what ultimately led to such huge demand for subprime loans.

Much of the blame here lies with investors because it is up to individuals to perform due diligence on their investments and make appropriate expectations. Investors failed in this by taking the 'AAA' CDO ratings at face value.



Final Culprit: Hedge Funds
Another party that added to the mess was th
e hedge fund industry. It aggravated the problem not only by pushing rates lower, but also by fueling the market volatility that caused investor losses. The failures of a few investment managers also contributed to the problem. (To learn more. check out Taking A Look Behind Hedge Funds.)

To illustrate, there is a type of hedge fund strategy that can be best described as "credit arbitrage". It involves purchasing subprime bonds on credit and hedging these positions with credit default swaps. This amplified demand for CDOs; by using leverage, a fund could purchase a lot more CDOs and bonds than it could with existing capital alone, pushing subprime interest rates lower and further fueling the problem. Moreover, because leverage was involved, this set the stage for a spike in volatility, which is exactly what happened as soon as investors realized the true, lesser quality of subprime CDOs.

Because hedge funds use a significant amount of leverage, losses were amplified and many hedge funds shut down operations as they ran out of money in the face of margin calls. (For more on this, see Massive Hedge Fund Failures and Losing The Amaranth Gamble.)

Plenty of Blame to Go Around

Overall, it was a mix of factors and participants that precipitated the current subprime mess. Ultimately, though, human behavior and greed drove the demand, supply and the investor appetite for these types of loans. Hindsight is always 20/20, and it is now obvious that there was a lack of wisdom on the part of many. However, there are countless examples of markets lacking wisdom, most recently the dotcom bubble and ensuing "irrational exuberance" on the part of investors.

It seems to be a fact of life that investors will always extrapolate current conditions too far into the future - good, bad or ugly.










KEY TERMS AND THEIR MEANING-REFERENCE ARTICLE


TRANCHE

the word tranche (misspelled as traunch or traunche) refers to one of several related securitized bonds offered as part of the same deal. The word tranche is French for slice, section, series, or portion; in the financial sense of the word, each bond is a slice of the deal's risk. The legal documents usually refer to the tranches as "classes" of notes identified by letter (e.g. the Class A, Class B, Class C securities).
All the tranches together make up what is referred to as the deal's capital structure or liability structure. They are generally paid sequentially from the most senior (usually Senior Secured) to most subordinate (generally unsecured.
The more senior rated tranches generally have higher ratings than the lower rated tranches. For example, senior tranches may be rated AAA, AA or A, while a junior, unsecured tranche may be rated BB. However, ratings can fluctuate after the debt is issued and even senior tranches could be rated below investment grade (less than BBB).
Tranches with a first lien on the assets of the asset pool are referred to as "senior tranches" and are generally safer investments. The natural buyers of these types of securities tend to be conduits, insurance companies, pension funds and other risk averse investors.
Tranches with either a second lien or no lien are often referred to as "junior notes". These are more risky investments because they are not secured by specific assets. The natural buyers of these securities tend to be hedge funds and other investors seeking higher risk/return profiles.


MORTGAGE

A mortgage is a method of using property (real or personal) as security for the payment of a debt.In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans secured on real estate rather than other property (such as ships) and in some cases only land may be mortgaged. Arranging a mortgage is seen as the standard method by which individuals and businesses can purchase residential and commercial real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately.
In many countries it is normal for home purchases to be funded by a mortgage. In countries where the demand for home ownership is highest, strong domestic markets have developed, notably in Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.


COLLATERIZED DEBT OBLIGATION

In financial markets, collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are a type of asset-backed security and structured credit product. CDOs gain exposure to the credit of a portfolio of fixed-income assets and divide the credit risk among different tranches: senior tranches (rated AAA), mezzanine tranches (AA to BB), and equity tranches (unrated). Losses are applied in reverse order of seniority and so junior tranches offer higher coupons (interest rates) to compensate for the added risk. CDOs serve as an important funding vehicle for portfolio investments in credit-risky fixed-income assets.
CDOs vary in structure and underlying collateral, but the basic principle is the same. First, a CDO entity acquires its inventory - such as income securities asset-backed securities in a cash or synthetic format. Then, the CDO entity sells rights to the cash flows from the inventory along with associated risk. The sold rights are called tranches in accordance with the cash flow and risk assignment rules of the CDO: senior (rated AAA) tranches are paid first followed by mezzanine (AA to BB) tranches and, last of all, equity tranches (unrated).
As seen from above, investors have taken a position not in the mortgages or asset backed securities, but in an entity that has defined risk and reward. Therefore, the investment is dependent on not just the quality of the inventory but also of the quality of the metrics and assumptions used for defining the risk and reward of the tranches. The latter can trump the former just as the inventory can trump the investment.


ARBITRAGE
arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of a price differential between two or more markets: a combination of matching deals are struck that capitalize upon the imbalance, the profit being the difference between the market prices. When used by academics, an arbitrage is a transaction that involves no negative cash flow at any probabilistic or temporal state and a positive cash flow in at least one state; in simple terms, a risk-free profit. A person who engages in arbitrage is called an arbitrageur. The term is mainly applied to trading in financial instruments, such as bonds, stocks, derivatives, commodities and currencies.
If the market prices do not allow for profitable arbitrage, the prices are said to constitute an arbitrage equilibrium or arbitrage-free market

Arbitrage is possible when one of three conditions is met:
1. The same asset does not trade at the same price on all markets ("the law of one price").
2. Two assets with identical cash flows do not trade at the same price.
3. An asset with a known price in the future does not today trade at its future price discounted at the risk-free interest rate (or, the asset does not have negligible costs of storage; as such, for example, this condition holds for grain but not for securities).



REVERSE MORTGAGE

A reverse mortgage (known as lifetime mortgage in the United Kingdom) is a loan available to seniors (62 and over in the United States), and is used to release the home equity in the property as one lump sum or multiple payments. The homeowner's obligation to repay the loan is deferred until the owner dies, the home is sold, or the owner leaves (e.g. into aged care).
In a typical mortgage the homeowner makes a monthly amortized payment to the lender; after each payment the equity increases within his or her property, and typically after the end of the term (e.g. 30 years) the mortgage has been paid in full and the property is released from the lender. In a reverse mortgage, the home owner makes no payments and all interest is added to the lien on the property. If the owner receives monthly payments, then the debt on the property increases each month.
If a property has increased in value after a reverse mortgage is taken out, it is possible to acquire a second (or third) reverse mortgage over the increased equity in the home. But in certain countries (including the United States), a reverse mortgage must be the first and only mortgage on the property.

SPECIAL REFERENCE FOR QUALIFYING IN THE US FOR REVERSE MORTGAGE
To qualify for a reverse mortgage in the United States, the borrower must be at least 62 years of age. There are no minimum income or credit requirements, but there are other requirements and homeowners should make sure that they qualify for the loan before they invest significant time or money into the process. For most reverse mortgages, the money can be used for any purpose; however, the borrower must pay off any existing mortgage(s) with the proceeds from the reverse mortgage and, if needed, additional personal funds. A pending bankruptcy which has not been finalized may, however, slow the process. Some types of dwellings, such as lower-value mobile homes, do not qualify. Before borrowing, applicants must seek free financial counseling from a source which is approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The counseling is a safeguard for the borrower and his/her family, to make sure the borrower completely understands what a reverse mortgage is and how one is obtained.


HEDGING

Hedging is a strategy designed to minimize exposure to an unwanted business risk, while still allowing the business to profit from an investment activity. Typically, a hedger might invest in a security that he believes is under-priced relative to its "fair value" (for example a mortgage loan that he is then making), and combine this with a short sale of a related security or securities. Thus the hedger is indifferent to the movements of the market as a whole, and is interested only in the performance of the 'under-priced' security relative to the hedge.