this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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Securitization allows banks to repackage and resell debt, famously explained by actress Margot Robbie in a bubble bath in the film “The Big Short.”

The European Union wants to breathe new life into a financial practice most commonly associated with causing the 2008 financial crisis as it tries to jump-start banks’ lending to the economy.

On Tuesday, the European Commission will publish a package of legislation aiming to revive the industry of “securitization,” after strict postcrisis laws almost stamped out the use of the practice in the bloc.

Securitization is the practice where banks repackage and resell debt, famously explained by actress Margot Robbie in a bubble bath in the film "The Big Short." The engineering allows banks to move some assets off their balance sheets, giving them more space to extend new loans.

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[–] Album@lemmy.ca 46 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (22 children)

Securitization is a tool and only part of why the markets collapsed. The reduction of the problem to securitization fails to recognize the bad loans and ineffective ratings given to collateralized securities, and the hidden tranches not disclosed to investors.

If your mortgage/loan market isn't fraudulent then you don't have underlying assets with impossibly high risk. If the ratings agencies properly rate securities then investors know what the risk is. And if the government regulates the issuance of these securities through prospectuses (which they do now) then investors will know what's in them.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

It also assumes that businesses won't do anything they think they can get away with if they think it will make a buck. Given just how many times that has happened, saying regulators will catch any attempts to sidestep those rules is fairly optimistic, in my opinion.

[–] Album@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

It's the opposite. Regulation assumes business will do anything they think they can get away with if it will make a buck. A lack of regulation assumes companies won't do those things.

People think "regulators" allowed this to happen, but actually as "regulators" are agencies established by the government that act upon law. At the time of the 2008 financial crash there were limited or few laws (i.e. regulations) on derivatives. It's law makers that refused to act.

It seems people are largely unaware of the myriad of regulatory changes that came after 2008 and bernie that applied to derivatives and customer/investor protection in general.

The same set of factors that created 2008 is no longer applicable as the environment has changed. There will surely be new regulatory weaknesses that need to be addressed

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 weeks ago

Everyone should meet someone that worked in the mortgage industry pre 2008. The number of things that were not only allowed, but perfectly legal were absurd.

  • appraisal was basically a bribe for any number you wanted.
  • no document loans were far more available for anyone.
  • mortgages had no real chain of custody after sale.
  • there wasn't any real way to verify the risk of a mortgage security pre 2008.
  • variable rates didn't have lifetime caps on rates, and reporting the details of how they functioned weren't required.
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