The year was 2005. Tiger Woods was beginning what was sure to be a long and blissful marriage to wife Elin, Mel Gibson was the darling of Hollywood after steering “Passion of the Christ” to over $600 million at the box office and US house prices were at record highs after 5 consecutive years of stellar growth. Life was good. Little did we know that Mel was on the verge of a very public break down, Tiger was about to get caught with his pants down and the US economy was standing on the precipice of financial meltdown. The housing market was built on a foundation of weak lending standards, rising personal debt and a speculative fever which had gripped the nation and it was a foundation which was about to crumble, claiming with it some of the largest institutions on Wall Street. Continue reading →