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This is a copy and paste from another website that helped me understand a little more of our economic crisis. I don't know where it first appeared to give credit. This will probably end up in the Bilge when it goes political but try to keep it here as long as possible.
When the bubble burst
While some blame the greed of Wall Street investment bankers and the dangers of a totally unregulated system for the current financial crisis, what can't be denied is that lives, and lifestyles, have been suddenly changed across the social spectrum and careers built up over a lifetime have vanished in an instant. Apart from the revised $700 billion bailout plan, can the U.S. government do enough to restore confidence and assuage the trauma?
The real question is: Who is going to compensate the common investors across the world who have lost their wealth in the resultant market meltdown?
The bursting of the speculative bubble in the U.S. housing market has destroyed billions of dollars in investor wealth across the world, crippled the banking system, expunged close to a million jobs…and India has not been spared either. With banks failing by the day, definitely, these are uncertain times for the financial services industry. While many people who have lost their jobs are faced with permanent shrinkage of their lifestyle, others in the industry are going through the trauma of not knowing if and when their turn would come. Who is to blame?
Flashback to year 2003:
Rohit (name changed to protect identity), a good friend of mine and someone who was officially considered to be a genius with an IQ of 150+, graduated from one of the leading IIMs. Rohit managed to make it into the New York Headquarters of the most sought after firm that had arrived on campus for the first time — Lehman Brothers — a top U.S. Investment Bank (then). On joining, he was assigned to Lehman's mortgage securities desk that dealt with Collateralised Debt obligations (or CDOs).
Following is an extracted transcript of a chat session I had with Rohit back in 2004:
Me: So man, you must feel like you are on top of the world.
Rohit: Yes dude, the job here is amazing, I get to interact with people around the world, investment managers who want to invest millions of dollars
Me: Great…so tell me something interesting. What's your job all about?
Rohit: You know there is a great demand for American home loans, which we buy from the U.S. banks. We then convert these into what is called as CDOs (Collateralised Debt Obligations) . In plain English, this refers to buying home loans that banks had already issued to customers, cutting them into smaller pieces, packaging the pieces based on return (interest rate), value, tenure (duration of the loans) and selling them to investors across the world after giving it a fancy name, such as "High Grade Structured Credit Enhanced Leverage Fund".
Me: Wow! I would've never guessed that boring home loans could transform into something that sounds so cool!
Rohit: Hahaha…actually we create multiple funds categorised based on the nature of the CDO packages they contain and investors can buy shares in any of these funds (almost like mutual funds…but called Structured Investment Vehicles or SIVs)
Me: Dude, you make your job sound like a meat shop…chopping and packaging. So, in effect when an investor purchases the CDOs (or the fund containing the CDOs), he is expected to receive a share of the monthly EMI paid by the actual guys who have taken the underlying home loans?
Rohit: Exactly, the banks from whom we purchased these home loans send us a monthly cheque, which we in turn distribute to the investors in our funds
Me: Why do the banks sell these home loans to you guys?
Rohit: Because we allow them to keep a significant portion of the interest rate charged on the home loans and we pay them upfront cash, which they can use to issue more home loans. Otherwise home loans go on for 20-30 years and it would take a long time for the bank to recover its money.
Me: And, why does Lehman buy these loans?
Rohit: Because we get a fat commission when we convert the loans into CDOs and sell it to investors.
Me: Who are these investors?
Rohit: They include everyone from pension funds in Japan to Life Insurance companies in Finland.
Me: But tell me, why are these funds so interested in purchasing American home loans?
Rohit: Well, these guys are typically interested in U.S. Govt. bonds (considered to be the safest in the world). But unfortunately, Mr. Alan Greenspan (head of Federal Reserve Bank, similar to RBI in India) has reduced the interest rate to nearly 1 per cent to perk up the economy after the dotcom crash 9/11attacks. This has left many funds looking for alternative investments that can give them higher returns. Home loans are ideal because they offer 4-6 per cent interest rate.
Me: Wait, aren't home loans more risky than U.S Bonds?
Rohit: We have made home loans less risky now. In fact they have become as safe as U.S Govt. bonds.
Me: What are you saying, man? What if the people who have taken these underlying home loans default? Then the investors would stop getting the EMIs, and their returns would take a hit. Wouldn't it?
Rohit: Boss, may be some will default, but not definitely more than 2-3 per cent. Moreover, we have convinced AIG (a leading insurance company) to insure our CDOs. This means that even if there were big defaults,the insurance company would compensate the investors.
Me: that's amazing. What are these insurances called?
Rohit: Credit Default Swaps.
Me: Definitely you guys are the most creative when it comes to naming.
Rohit: Thanks.
Me: And why has this AIG guy insured millions of home loans?
Rohit: See man, the logic is simple. Home prices in the U.S always go up. In fact over the last three years alone they have doubled. So even if someone defaults paying the EMI, the home can be seized and sold for a much higher price. So there is no risk. Insurance companies are actually competing to insure this, because they can earn risk-free
premiums.
Me: No wonder investment managers from all over the world want to put money in your CDOs.
*A global financial cobweb started getting built around the American dream of purchasing a home and it rested on the assumption that "home prices will keep rising". As demand for the CDOs started growing across the global investment community, the investment bankers (like Lehman) who were meant to sell these instruments also started investing a significant portion of their own capital in these. I guess after selling the story to the whole world, they themselves got sold on the seemingly foolproof concept. Gradually the markets for CDOs and Credit Default Swaps started expanding with traders and investors buying and selling these as if they were shares of a company, happily forgetting the underlying people behind these products who took the home loans in the first place and on whose capacity to repay the loans, the safety of these products depended.
As Wall Street firms like Lehman were churning more and more home loans into CDOs and selling them or investing their own money, there was a pressure on the banks to issue more loans so that they can be sold to the Wall Street firms in return for a commission. Slowly banks started lowering the credit quality (qualification criteria) for availing a home loan and aggressively used agents to source new loans. This slippery slope went to such an extent that in 2005, almost anyone in the U.S could buy a home worth $100,000 (45 lakhs INR) or more without income proof, without other assets, without credit history, sometimes even without a proper job. These loans were called NINA — "no income no assets".
The U.S. housing market went into a classic speculative bubble. Home loans were easy to get, so more and more people were buying houses. The increased demand for houses caused the price to increase. The rising prices created even more demand, as people started to look at homes as investments — investments that never went down in value.
When I touched base with my friend Rohit in late 2005, he was on cloud nine. During the previous one year, he managed to buy a home in Long Island (a posh area near New York City) worth almost a million dollars, and got himself a Mercedes. All this was interesting to hear, but what shocked me was that although he was earning close to $20,000
a month (that is what CEOs in India make) he was not able to save anything because his lifestyle expenses where growing faster than his salary.
When the bubble burst
While some blame the greed of Wall Street investment bankers and the dangers of a totally unregulated system for the current financial crisis, what can't be denied is that lives, and lifestyles, have been suddenly changed across the social spectrum and careers built up over a lifetime have vanished in an instant. Apart from the revised $700 billion bailout plan, can the U.S. government do enough to restore confidence and assuage the trauma?
The real question is: Who is going to compensate the common investors across the world who have lost their wealth in the resultant market meltdown?
The bursting of the speculative bubble in the U.S. housing market has destroyed billions of dollars in investor wealth across the world, crippled the banking system, expunged close to a million jobs…and India has not been spared either. With banks failing by the day, definitely, these are uncertain times for the financial services industry. While many people who have lost their jobs are faced with permanent shrinkage of their lifestyle, others in the industry are going through the trauma of not knowing if and when their turn would come. Who is to blame?
Flashback to year 2003:
Rohit (name changed to protect identity), a good friend of mine and someone who was officially considered to be a genius with an IQ of 150+, graduated from one of the leading IIMs. Rohit managed to make it into the New York Headquarters of the most sought after firm that had arrived on campus for the first time — Lehman Brothers — a top U.S. Investment Bank (then). On joining, he was assigned to Lehman's mortgage securities desk that dealt with Collateralised Debt obligations (or CDOs).
Following is an extracted transcript of a chat session I had with Rohit back in 2004:
Me: So man, you must feel like you are on top of the world.
Rohit: Yes dude, the job here is amazing, I get to interact with people around the world, investment managers who want to invest millions of dollars
Me: Great…so tell me something interesting. What's your job all about?
Rohit: You know there is a great demand for American home loans, which we buy from the U.S. banks. We then convert these into what is called as CDOs (Collateralised Debt Obligations) . In plain English, this refers to buying home loans that banks had already issued to customers, cutting them into smaller pieces, packaging the pieces based on return (interest rate), value, tenure (duration of the loans) and selling them to investors across the world after giving it a fancy name, such as "High Grade Structured Credit Enhanced Leverage Fund".
Me: Wow! I would've never guessed that boring home loans could transform into something that sounds so cool!
Rohit: Hahaha…actually we create multiple funds categorised based on the nature of the CDO packages they contain and investors can buy shares in any of these funds (almost like mutual funds…but called Structured Investment Vehicles or SIVs)
Me: Dude, you make your job sound like a meat shop…chopping and packaging. So, in effect when an investor purchases the CDOs (or the fund containing the CDOs), he is expected to receive a share of the monthly EMI paid by the actual guys who have taken the underlying home loans?
Rohit: Exactly, the banks from whom we purchased these home loans send us a monthly cheque, which we in turn distribute to the investors in our funds
Me: Why do the banks sell these home loans to you guys?
Rohit: Because we allow them to keep a significant portion of the interest rate charged on the home loans and we pay them upfront cash, which they can use to issue more home loans. Otherwise home loans go on for 20-30 years and it would take a long time for the bank to recover its money.
Me: And, why does Lehman buy these loans?
Rohit: Because we get a fat commission when we convert the loans into CDOs and sell it to investors.
Me: Who are these investors?
Rohit: They include everyone from pension funds in Japan to Life Insurance companies in Finland.
Me: But tell me, why are these funds so interested in purchasing American home loans?
Rohit: Well, these guys are typically interested in U.S. Govt. bonds (considered to be the safest in the world). But unfortunately, Mr. Alan Greenspan (head of Federal Reserve Bank, similar to RBI in India) has reduced the interest rate to nearly 1 per cent to perk up the economy after the dotcom crash 9/11attacks. This has left many funds looking for alternative investments that can give them higher returns. Home loans are ideal because they offer 4-6 per cent interest rate.
Me: Wait, aren't home loans more risky than U.S Bonds?
Rohit: We have made home loans less risky now. In fact they have become as safe as U.S Govt. bonds.
Me: What are you saying, man? What if the people who have taken these underlying home loans default? Then the investors would stop getting the EMIs, and their returns would take a hit. Wouldn't it?
Rohit: Boss, may be some will default, but not definitely more than 2-3 per cent. Moreover, we have convinced AIG (a leading insurance company) to insure our CDOs. This means that even if there were big defaults,the insurance company would compensate the investors.
Me: that's amazing. What are these insurances called?
Rohit: Credit Default Swaps.
Me: Definitely you guys are the most creative when it comes to naming.
Rohit: Thanks.
Me: And why has this AIG guy insured millions of home loans?
Rohit: See man, the logic is simple. Home prices in the U.S always go up. In fact over the last three years alone they have doubled. So even if someone defaults paying the EMI, the home can be seized and sold for a much higher price. So there is no risk. Insurance companies are actually competing to insure this, because they can earn risk-free
premiums.
Me: No wonder investment managers from all over the world want to put money in your CDOs.
*A global financial cobweb started getting built around the American dream of purchasing a home and it rested on the assumption that "home prices will keep rising". As demand for the CDOs started growing across the global investment community, the investment bankers (like Lehman) who were meant to sell these instruments also started investing a significant portion of their own capital in these. I guess after selling the story to the whole world, they themselves got sold on the seemingly foolproof concept. Gradually the markets for CDOs and Credit Default Swaps started expanding with traders and investors buying and selling these as if they were shares of a company, happily forgetting the underlying people behind these products who took the home loans in the first place and on whose capacity to repay the loans, the safety of these products depended.
As Wall Street firms like Lehman were churning more and more home loans into CDOs and selling them or investing their own money, there was a pressure on the banks to issue more loans so that they can be sold to the Wall Street firms in return for a commission. Slowly banks started lowering the credit quality (qualification criteria) for availing a home loan and aggressively used agents to source new loans. This slippery slope went to such an extent that in 2005, almost anyone in the U.S could buy a home worth $100,000 (45 lakhs INR) or more without income proof, without other assets, without credit history, sometimes even without a proper job. These loans were called NINA — "no income no assets".
The U.S. housing market went into a classic speculative bubble. Home loans were easy to get, so more and more people were buying houses. The increased demand for houses caused the price to increase. The rising prices created even more demand, as people started to look at homes as investments — investments that never went down in value.
When I touched base with my friend Rohit in late 2005, he was on cloud nine. During the previous one year, he managed to buy a home in Long Island (a posh area near New York City) worth almost a million dollars, and got himself a Mercedes. All this was interesting to hear, but what shocked me was that although he was earning close to $20,000
a month (that is what CEOs in India make) he was not able to save anything because his lifestyle expenses where growing faster than his salary.
__________________
Unheeded signals
In late 2006, Mortgage lenders noticed something that they'd almost never seen before. People would choose a house, sign all the mortgage papers, and then default on their very first payment. Although no one could really hear it, that was probably the moment when one of the biggest speculative bubbles in American history popped. Another factor
that lead to the burst of the housing bubble was the rise in interest rates from 2004-2006. Many people had taken variable rate home loans that started getting reset to higher rates, which in turn meant higher EMIs that borrowers had not planned for.
The problem was that once property values starting going down, it set off a reverse chain reaction, the opposite of what had been happening in the bubble. As more people defaulted, more houses came on the market. With no buyers, prices went even further down.
In early 2007, as prices began their plunge, alarm bells started going off across mortgage-backed securities desks all over Wall Street. The people on Wall Street, like Rohit, started getting calls from investors about not getting their interest payments that were due. Wall Street firms stopped buying home loans from the local banks. This had a devastating effect on particularly the small banks and finance companies, which had borrowed money from larger banks to issue more home loans thinking they could sell these loans to Wall Street firms like Lehman and make money.
Everyone got into a mad scramble to seize and sell the homes in order to get back at least some of the money. But there were just not enough buyers. The guys who had insured these loans thinking they had near zero risk (e.g. AIG) could not fulfil the unexpectedly huge number of claims. The best part was that since these insurance policies (credit
default swaps) could themselves be traded, multiple people had bought and sold them, and it became so tough to even trace who was supposed to compensate for the loss.
The global financial cobweb built around mortgages is on the brink of collapse. Firms, large and small, some young some as old as a 100 years have crumbled as a result of suing each other over the dwindling asset values. Lehman's India operations, that employed over a thousand staff, is up for sale and many of the employees have been asked to leave. The Indian stock market has crashed almost 50 per cent from its high (and so have markets around the world) as the Wall Street giants sold their investments in the country in an effort to salvage whatever is good in order to make up for the mortgage related loss. Hedge funds, pension funds, insurance companies all over the world have lost billions in investor's money. Many Indian B-School graduates with PPOs (pre-placement offers) in the financial sector (India and abroad) have either received an annulment or indefinite postponement of joining dates. IT firms that built and maintained software for the U.S. mortgage industry or the related Investment Banks, have shut down their business units, laid-off people or transferred them to other verticals.
Fragile system
For all the hoopla over the sharp and sophisticated people on Wall Street, the current financial crisis has exposed the fragility of the system. Wall Street is blaming the entire episode on people who could not repay their home loans. But the reality seems to point towards the stupidity of people who lent all this money, financial institutions that built fancy derivative packages and in effect facilitated billions in trading and investments in these fragile low quality loans.
The U.S. Govt is planning to grant 700 billion dollars to the Wall Street firms to compensate the financial speculators for the money that they have lost. Isn't this like rewarding greed and stupidity? The head of a leading Investment Bank has stated, "This is necessary to sustain financial ingenuity. We don't want to spend this money on ourselves. We just want this money to go into the market so that we can carry on trading complex securities, borrowing and lending money." (Yeah…right, so that one can act as if nothing had happened without analysing too much into it). The real question is: Who is going to compensate the common investors across the world who have lost their wealth in the resultant market meltdown? (either directly or through pension funds).
After being unreachable for a month now, finally I heard back from my pal, Rohit, saying he is back in India to take a break from the roller coaster ride that he had lived through. After Lehman's collapse he has lost his job and probably the house that he had bought by taking a hefty loan. I really don't know whether to feel happy for him, for
getting an opportunity to learn a lesson or two from the experience or to feel sad for him for losing his job. May be I'll get a better sense of things once I meet him next week
__________________
Greenspan lowering and lowering again the fed funds rate sure is a major cause of our problems. Too bad they ignored inflation for so long. They should have raised rates to keep inflation in check. Why did he feel the need to prop up the economy? Maybe because the surge in oil prices slowed it. Every problem in our economy can be linked to oil.
Very interesting read, but I would like to find out who wrote it and where it was published before I put to much weight on it. Makes me think twice since no background info is known. Anyone seen it before?
I found the article that I posted above. From what little I know and have read, it does seem credible to me. I don't think these guys have an iron in our political fire.
Very interesting read, but I would like to find out who wrote it and where it was published before I put to much weight on it. Makes me think twice since no background info is known. Anyone seen it before?
that's almost exactly the same story that was reported on 60 minutes. there's not really anything debatable in the email...except maybe the overall impact of these loans, reloans and loan insurance. obviosuly there are many layers to it and this email and the 60 minutes piece are just trying to break down a very complex problem into something we laymen can understand.
personally, i think media hye and fear have been the cause of most of the stock market problems, but there's little doubt that the mortgage bubble played a part.
Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion---when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing---when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors---when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you---when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice---you may know that your society is doomed.
~ Ayn Rand
Written many years ago and very prophetic.........................
... The U.S. Govt is planning to grant 700 billion dollars to the Wall Street firms to compensate the financial speculators for the money that they have lost. Isn't this like rewarding greed and stupidity?
No. It's not about "rewarding" to top; it's about keeping a lid on the top. Don't think of it as a "bail out"; think of it as a cover up.
As Katherine Austin Fitts, a retired auditor that worked for the federal Government Accounting Office, said, if we (the people) were allowed to know how much fraud there is in those CDOs and the banking system, we would not put our money in banks, nor would any other country invest in any US paper (T-bills), and the USofA cannot exist without that foreign investment.
Fitts sez it is not possible for the amount of the defaults to be as big are they are without there being significant fraud involved. Through the whole bailout/cover up hoopla that worked its way through Congress, no one has acted to preserve any records from any of the failed financial institutions.
I was listening to a "authority" on the radio talking about thse worlwide financial market derivitives(way beyond my level of comprehension), he said that was a 55 trillion dollar market.
... The U.S. Govt is planning to grant 700 billion dollars to the Wall Street firms to compensate the financial speculators for the money that they have lost. Isn't this like rewarding greed and stupidity?
No. It's not about "rewarding" to top; it's about keeping a lid on the top. Don't think of it as a "bail out"; think of it as a cover up.
As Katherine Austin Fitts, a retired auditor that worked for the federal Government Accounting Office, said, if we (the people) were allowed to know how much fraud there is in those CDOs and the banking system, we would not put our money in banks, nor would any other country invest in any US paper (T-bills), and the USofA cannot exist without that foreign investment.
Fitts sez it is not possible for the amount of the defaults to be as big are they are without there being significant fraud involved. Through the whole bailout/cover up hoopla that worked its way through Congress, no one has acted to preserve any records from any of the failed financial institutions.
Right. The most that can be lost by the mortgage crisis itself is the net loss in value of the real estate less the original equity that the owner had in those properties that are foreclosed. Based on even the latest foreclosure data, there is no way that can be much more than 300 billion.
All of the financial instruments on top of that should have been a matched book - meaning someone's loss was someone else's gain. The only way that there could have been systemic exposure beyond the 300 billion would be if those that were long on the CDOs or Credit default swaps had valued them more aggressively than those that were short.
There is a lot more going on here than sub-prime mortgage defaults.
I fall in the group "careers built up over a lifetime suddenly vanished".
but greenspan said this was all good for you? who did he really work for?
DESERVED DISRESPECT TO GREENSPAN
Can you believe what is happening before a Congressional banking committee? Greenspan is being grilled, as his past errors are vividly pointed out. His past memos are being read back to him. His wrong premises are being questioned as having being totally discredited. His opposition to credit derivative disclosure is being challenged. His opposition to Fannie Mae reform is being challenged. He has been brought to task for his steadfast opposition for reform in the past during his tenure as USFed Chairman. He is being interrupted by lowly Congressional reps. His time to speak is being cut, in defense of others to be grilled. HE IS BEING SHOWN THE DISRESPECT DESERVED OF ANY FAILED PUBLIC OFFICIAL. Maybe they will demand to know who paid his second paycheck from Switzerland, and what his agenda was! Not likely! My view is that Greenspan was a primary key person used to take down the US banking system, to pave the way for a bigger agenda. These are intelligent people who knew what they were doing, who were the cheerleaders, even the Mythology High Priest.
Greenspan admitted a grand flaw in his free market ideology. He admitted being shocked that financial markets did not self-regulate. Hey Alan! They never self-regulate amidst a Fascist Business Model, since regulators and law enforcement is compromised as much as humanly or institutionally possible! He admitted a failure in the global financial market structure as he perceived it, a stunning admission. He acknowledged the USEconomy is faltering badly. He sees the rise in job layoffs and unemployment. He sees the retrenchment in consumer spending. He sees the price declines in housing without abatement. He forecasted a worsening recession.
His biggest admission is this. He admits to a flaw in the structural model perceived in the critically function for global banking. Wow! THAT IS A BIG ADMISSION, NOT PROPERLY PERCEIVING THE GLOBAL BANK STRUCTURE. He admits to how his risk pricing model did not take into account periods of financial stress. Hey Alan! Is that not what they are designed for? He used to boast for a full decade how offloaded risk via credit derivatives was a sign of sophistication, which enabled economic expansion. Instead, my view is that risk offload devices contributed toward an expansion atop a bubble, which when burst, killed the entire US banking system and then the USEconomy. He used to boast that credit derivatives shared the risk, but in fact it resulted in destruction on a widespread systemic basis. Recall the many claims made by Bernanke, that the subprime mortgage bond bust would be contained. The former Princeton Professor is not a good student of banking and economics! Unlike me, he is greatly encumbered by the limitations of economics credentials! Mathematics and statistics are pure science and its application as artistry.
NO SOLUTIONS FOR ECONOMY FROM BAILOUTS
Almost all US-based bailouts to date are to pay for dead financial firms. Their shareholders and bond holders and asset base have been repaired but not restored. To think this benefits the loan process is folly. It facilitates retirement to the Caribbean for corrupt bank executives. The flow of federal funds will not find its way to the people, or at least only pennies per dollar will. The ‘Top-down Approach’ is destined to fail because the corruption, bond fraud, accounting fraud, financial instrument shell game, and other assorted illicit procedures are the cause of the problem, and all lie at the top of the structure intended to trickle down! To expect benefits downstream is lunacy. In fact, the devices to assist and subsidize the criminal behavior at the top are vastly expanding with multiple branches. No less than five special purpose vehicles created by JPMorgan Chase were announced on Wednesday. The number of USFed lending facilities, all to big banks, none to people on Main Street, has exploded to such an extent that one needs a sportsbook guide to comprehend all the acronyms. David Rosenberg of Merrill Lynch even coined the YAP, yet another program. Proliferation might be what the architects of the Financial Coup d’Etat intended. Confusion is the best friend of coup architects, just like truth is the first victim of war.
The people receive $1 for every $500 given to Wall Street elite in fraud redemption. The rank & file population entered a ‘Revolving Door’ of loan repayments that often do not reduce the loan balance, assured to end in foreclosure within a year or so. The same nonsense of ‘Trickle Down’ was prevailed when it has no past precedent of succeeding.
The lack of disclosure is a tragedy. Congress demands no better disclosure, and receives none. The Lehman Brothers resolution has been conducted in total darkness. Evidence coming my way indicates that JPMorgan is using the dead Lehman carcass as a vast private arsenal to attack hedge funds. Some such funds have most of their assets frozen, while their positions are attacked. What is happening is criminal, a climax of this administration, which has been taken over by Wall Street. A complaint has been made that Treasury Dept documents look like redacted CIA documents, hardly what is needed to instill confidence. One official decree after another undermines investor confidence, the last being short rule restrictions on financial stocks, with an exemption given to Goldman Sachs. This is a selective bailout of Wall Street, a process run by Wall Street, permitting financial crimes worthy of 1000-page indictments.
When the bubble burst 
