Breaking Down the Real Cause of the Foreclosure Crises

``What happened, in simple terms, is that beginning in 2003, Wall Street discovered that it could buy something called a Credit Default Swap (a credit derivative, in banker parlance), not just on a triple-A rated corporate bond, but also on a triple-A rated mortgage-backed security. And that meant that certain investors on The Street could now bet against the mortgage-backed bonds that were starting to sell like hotcakes. The Credit Default Swap swapped the risk of the bond defaulting... in other words, it paid off if the bond it was essentially insuring, went bad.''