Explain why the finanical crisis threatened bankruptcies of finanical instituions well beyond what might have been expected from the overall volum of subprime mortgage devt that had been issued in the years leading up to the crisis. Include in your discussion the fact that "off the Books: subsidiaries of major investment banks, (SIV's), often held these structured derivative products and raised their funding in short term money markets with a guarantee by the parent company to pay off their debts if they ran into liquidity difficulties.
This articles overlooks the credit derivatives such as CDO's and credit default swaps..