At the early stages of the past decade (2000) there was an excess of capital on an international basis, a consequence of the economy recovering from the "dot.com" burst and recession. Conventional wisdom and investment techniques called for low risk investments which paid a steady return. The problem was the demand for these investment vehicles far outpaced supply.
Please discuss the following:
As a result, money started to flow into the U.S. mortgage market through securitization of these home loans into mortgage backed securities. The theory was that these MBS investments would provide steady income provided through the monthly payments made by the borrowers, which were then backed by the real estate purchased.
Do you think this process of securitization had an impact on creating the economic crisis of 2008 to present?
As well, did securitization make an environment where mortgage lenders started to relax their credit (underwriting) approval standards?