My Personal Credit Crisis


Edmund Andrews is an economics reporter for the New York Times, and he still managed to get in way over his head on his mortgage. His story is funny, humane, and intelligent—an instant classic of economic crisis journalism:

As I walked out of the settlement office with my loan papers, I couldn’t shake the sense of having just done something bad … but also kind of cool. I had just come up with almost a half-million dollars, and I had barely lifted a finger. It had been so easy and fast. Almost fun. I couldn’t help feeling like a high roller, a sophisticated player who could lay his hands on big money at a moment’s notice. Despite my nagging anxiety about the gamble that Patty and I were taking, I had whipped through the pile of loan documents in less than 45 minutes.