NPR’s Planet Money has bought a toxic asset, which is one of those creative financial products that helped to cause the Great Recession. They are tracking its value over time, and hope to make their money back. You can look at how the toxic asset has performed with a nice interactive infographic that they have on their website. I think that it is neat that they are doing something like this. From their article on the infographic:
Planet Money is committed to following the financial crisis to the bitter end. And what better way to do that than to own a piece of it. We bought one of those things that no one wanted, one of those things that almost brought down the global economy: our very own toxic asset. This one has more than 2,000 mortgages in it. We paid $1,000, with our own money, for our piece. It used to be worth more like $75,000. Click on the timeline and roll over the states to watch a disaster in progress.
