vbmoneyspender wrote: “So one of the questions that needs to be answered is how much were the problematic financial instruments purchased for.”
The mortgages went into the MBS at par. The problem is what are they worth now because so many are in default, along with the fall in value of the collateral.
I doubt there was fraud related to selling the same mortgage 5 times over.
Where the fraud was is more related to the rating agencies: rating these MBS at AAA given the default rates we have seen suggests “enron” accounting standards were being used by the rating agencies.
It would be nice to know what the numbers are. I gotta think somewhere they have the numbers. How many of the mortgages upon which the bad paper is based are in default. That at least gives a starting point for how much money is needed. Maybe I am wrong, but right now I get the impression that Paulson doesn’t have a firm handle on this and that the $700 billion figure has been plucked out of thin air.