From Michael, yesterday

I was reading tonight a website about the economic crisis. There was a statistic that helped me to realize how something like a crisis in home mortgages could trigger this whole economic crisis. Wrap your mind around this statistic: "Sonoma County borrowers pulled $8.3 billion out of their homes over the past five years, taking out more than 162,000 equity lines, according to estimates by Moody's Economy.com."

Read that again. In just one county in California, ONE COUNTY! 8.3 billion dollars in home equity loans. And these aren't even mortgages, just home equity loans!!! So how much in all of California? I don't know, but one can extrapolate. Granted Sonoma County is a wealthy county just north of San Francisco, but think how many hundreds of billion of dollars in home equity loans must have been taken out in California in the past five years. And they're going bad! In addition to the subprime mortgages, liar loans, interest only loans, etc. You're starting to talk serious money. This statistic about one county helped me to understand how much money is involved and why it is taking down these financial giants.