There were two reasons why I had been looking forward to this year.

First was the Great Recession! The cumulative result of the dotcom bubble led to a ‘subprime mortgage crisis.’ Since influential families had unexpectedly joined the market more aggressively than they did in the past, the timing of the bomb explosion had been delayed. However, the obvious signs that it would burst soon could be seen lately.

ABX, the index that represented twenty subprime mortgage bonds, was falling. The decline was more noticeable compared to when I checked before entering the dungeon. The lower the index, the higher the risk of bankruptcy.

Nevertheless, the market wasn’t reacting much. This was something that people could see but wanted to ignore. As banks and security firms in North America were raking in money from real estate mortgage loans and the products derived from them, everyone was pretending not to be aware of the warning that the ABX index was flashing. There were sharp comments that the risks they were creating were like nuclear bombs and would blow up...