Watch How the Everything Came Crashing Down in the Economy

I’ve seen this illustration of the credit market crisis in a couple of places, including Free From Broke and My Money Blog. While I think there were a number of additional factors contributing to the credit market crisis and the current economic recession, this is good illustration of a few of those factors. At the very least, it gives you a pretty good handle on how credit derivatives fit into this whole thing, and why banks didn’t have too many qualms about giving loans out to people who probably shouldn’t have had them.