A lot has been written about the housing and mortgage finance crisis in the United States.  You may be wondering how and why you would be affected by the failure of a mortgage company that issued high interest loans to borrowers who were not credit worthy.  Although it may not be obvious, a rising delinquency rate among sub-prime borrowers can and has impacted:

• housing prices (the value of homes in most places in the country has gone down)
• interest rates
• inflation
• the stock market
• our trade imbalance with other countries
• the decline of the dollar
• oil prices
• the stability of the stock market and commodities markets
• employment
• foreclosures

CNN and Fortune Magazine have produced a television program called "Busted - Mortgage Meltdown" that explores all of the implications of our mortgage crisis.  I suspect that the show will end up on-line but for now, you can visit the multi-media online companion to the show. 

Thanks to Paula Wethington from the blog Monroe on a Budget for writing about the CNN/Fortune program on her blog.