In his own words from the article: Greenspan Says Turmoil Fits Pattern
"The behavior in what we are observing in the last seven weeks is identical in many respects to what we saw in 1998, what we saw in the stock-market crash of 1987, I suspect what we saw in the land-boom collapse of 1837 and certainly [the bank panic of] 1907," Mr. Greenspan told a group of academic economists in Washington, D.C., last night at an event organized by the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, an academic journal.
Unfortunately the difference, at least as compared to 1998, is that this crisis is driven by an unwinding of fundamentals across an entire asset-class - real estate finance - that is related to the entire economy. Real estate impacts individuals directly through their homes, businesses through their rents, companies through their office buildings, investors through their holdings, and everyone above through the increased lending rates coming from bank's losses as a result of the implosion continuing in the ABS/CDO/CLO markets.
Next interesting tidbit on the horizon: Some big LBO's are awaiting closing over the next month or so. Big question: Will the banks just take it for the team?
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