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Don't spend much time at MSN Money because, well, I don't spend much time using MSN, but I headed over and checked out some of the latest news on the US housing market as an antidote to Victoria euphoria.

Jim Jubak has written a detailed explanation of how tranches of sub-prime debt were sliced up and doled out. Jim then takes apart the careful assumptions that led to this debt being marketed as high grade paper in the first place, using the analogy of natural disasters like storms, to show how the risk that was priced into these collateralized debt obligations was understimated. The story is here.