The Icy Slap of Reality
Ed Andrews an economics reporter for the New York Times, got caught up in the American mortgage crisis. He writes about how it happened to someone who should have known better.
If there was anybody who should have avoided the mortgage catastrophe, it was I. As an economics reporter for The New York Times, I have been the paper's chief eyes and ears on the Federal Reserve for the past six years. I watched Alan Greenspan and his successor, Ben S. Bernanke, at close range. I wrote several early-warning articles in 2004 about the spike in go-go mortgages. Before that, I had a hand in covering the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Russia meltdown in 1998 and the dot-com collapse in 2000. I know a lot about the curveballs that the economy can throw at us.Its a great article (adapted from a forthcoming book) full of honesty and humility. But it is also terrifying to read how quickly and easily one can get oneself into massive debt.
