Introducing ... mortgage-backed securities! No, really

Someone please pass a word of advice to Danareksa Investment Management.

The finance firm is launching 100 billion rupiah worth of ... wait for it ... mortgage-backed securities. It's the first such debt issuance in the country, and it's coming in February, backed by Bank Tabugan Negara.

Um, I don't know how to tell you this, guys, but ... mortgage-backed securities are exactly what got us into this global financial mess. The credit crunch, the asset devaluation, the bank blowups every couple of days? Mortgage-backed securities, where home loans are sliced and diced into risky tranches that PhD-level physicists can't understand.

I hope you know what you're doing, because you're stepping into a true financial minefield. If housing prices collapse in Indonesia, and owners all find themselves underwater (owing more than the house is worth), then those mortgage-backed securities won't be worth the paper they're written on. In fact, those fancy products on the verge of making the American financial system totally insolvent.

But, as the French say, bonne chance!


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