Some time ago, the Planet Money reporting team decided to really dig into the story of the financial meltdown. So they bought their own toxic asset, which one listener dubbed “Toxie“. Toxie made for great copy. We learned all about how CDOs were put together, how they were marketed, and why they tanked. We looked into why Toxie was toxic, discovering that it was, in fact, very sensible to walk away from your mortgage sometimes – even when this means you are taking money out of hardworking reporters’ pockets, via your portion of their pet toxic asset. We even learned about Toxie’s connection to the biggest mortgage fraud ever. It was an exciting time, but Toxie – as toxic assets seem to do – finally died. Here is a brief video tribute.
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