[PEN-L:1299] Re: Global margin call?

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote:

>Is this any different than somebody loaning me 75% of the
>money I need to buy a thousand shares of Hyundai stock?

Or 95% of the value of a house to buy it? I've heard, though I haven't
confirmed, that there's been a lot of 0-5% down mortgages in the U.S.,
promoted by the Clinton administration to get the homeownership numbers up.

On a more exotic note, there's an entire unmeasured world of leveraged
positions in derivatives and "off-balance-sheet" adventures by the world's
banks. In times like these, the closet doors blow open, revealing a lot of
skeletons hiding within (along with Matt Drudge).

Doug