SPONSORED BY:

America is in crisis. The markets are in freefall. And the newspapers are full of scary stories featuring baffling jargon most of us have never heard before. Can you tell a naked short from a mark to market, or a credit-default swap from a LIBOR? Take NEWSWEEK's financial-crunch literacy quiz.

Quiz: Do You Speak Bailout? America is in crisis. The markets are in freefall. And the newspapers are full of scary stories featuring baffling jargon most of us have never heard before. Can you tell a naked short from a mark to market, or a credit-default swap from a LIBOR? Take NEWSWEEK's financial-crunch literacy quiz.

 
 
The Weekly Obsession

The 'Weekly Obsession' is a new video series dissecting the issues that dominate our 24/7 news cycle

green rankings - sum total-environment
Sum Total

Behind every statistic, there's a good story. A look at how facts and figures can add up to something greater than themselves.

7 Things

In this series, NEWSWEEK interviews the artists, celebrities, musicians and newsmakers that fascinate us. In their own words, cultural icons get real about their art, their passions and life on the A-list. (Or B-list, as the case may be.)

Download NEWSWEEK Video Podcast with iTunes
Sponsored by
 
 
 
  • Social Networks
  • Links to this article
 
  • Digg It!
  • Newsvine
  • Del.icio.us
  • Post to MySpace! MySpace
 
 

Email To A Friend

Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.

Separate multiple addresses with commas

SPONSORED BY
 

Discuss

Member Comments

  • Posted By: edh58 @ 10/15/2008 12:30:23 AM

    I made 100%. I've been following these issues for a while. For those who want lay blame this on the CRA, get real! Nobody forced mortgage brokers lend to unworthy borrowers; they were making buckets of money pushing bad loans into the system. They even sold subprime loans to potential "prime" borrowers due to the lure higher commissions. The causes of the meltdown were 1) Cheap money (Thanks Mr. Greenspan!) 2) A BIG housing bubble, and 3) a lot of weak loans bundled into high yield securities. When interest rates were reset on the loans, and the bubble popped, the whole thing started falling like dominoes.

  • Posted By: navydave83 @ 10/11/2008 5:37:55 PM

    I want to understand what is going on in the economic/financial world, what has caused this slump, and why. So I took this test to see how much I knew, didn't know, and what I could determine based on logic. Well, 71% isn't bad, and it appears that I fall in the category to which most of the people who took the test fell. Not bad, not bad at all. Especially when considering that when I read articles in Newsweek about this crises I feel like I haven't a clue. I guess my econ. course is paying off. Woohoo! The bell curve is skewed slightly to the right. Woohoo!

  • Posted By: ballanelliott @ 10/10/2008 4:40:03 PM

    I did fine - 93%. Maybe Greenspan was wrong about Americans needing more education to be competetive, because making money so easy would lead to abuse, and fiddling with FF rates would instigate a housing bubble to replace a dot.com bubble, and forcing lending to unworthy borrowers and then forcing M-to-M accounting of illiquid assets was stupid. But then I need more education. :) And blaming current a administration for something began 29 years ago, well that might be unrealistic. But what do I know?

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse

View All Comments »