quotables ...

"Credit was so plentiful when Mr. Macklowe purchased his Manhattan office building from Blackstone, he only needed to put in $50 million of equity to secure $7.1 billion in debt..." This is an equity ratio of 0.704%, about the same as what people paid for mortgages in 2002-2006!

- Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2007

"Lending is going to be tight for the next year or two,". About what it was when the interest rate was, well, not nearly zero!

- WSJ, Dec. 26, 2007

"Good old days: lenders made healthy profits when they were able to offload risks." Yes, when the unsuspecting fools were aplenty. Guess, who has to pay now?

- WSJ, Dec. 26, 2007

Even if we took the meager numbers of today for the losses, around $100 billion, it translates to more than $300 per person, child, adult, and fool, in this country. In UK, the price paid per person for bailing out Northern Rock, turns out to be 1000 pounds.