Understanding the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

In the past year, the subprime mortgage crisis has received a healthy share of the media’s attention, especially since the dreaded “R word” (i.e., recession) has begun to rear its ugly head. But if you’re not a finance type (or even if you are), you’d be forgiven for not fully understanding what subprime lending is and why it has become such a big issue. To help you out, here are two humorous accounts of the chain of events that got us to where we’re at today—edutainment at it’s best:

The Subprime Primer [via Metafilter]: A lo-fi comic book briefing on where it all went wrong.

The British perspective: Comedy legends John Fortune and John Bird break down the topic with impressive wit on the The South Bank Show.