In the Dance of Debt — who is leading?  This network map shows
the key roles played in the recent mortgage meltdown. Starting
with Main Street on the left we connect the dots out to Wall
Street on the right side of the map. The nodes in the network
show the various players in the mortgage meltdown, while the
links show the exchange of money and value.  Who is responsible
for the meltdown? Some blame the poor — they bought houses they
could not afford and lied on their loan applications. Others
point the finger at Wall Street investment bankers extracting
wealth from the working classes. Additionally there were plenty
of "middle men" enhancing the flow between the players at either
end of the network. Who was critical to the meltdown?  I
approach this question as a network scientist — my initial hunch
is to look for interesting patterns and players. The network
metrics of Connector and Integrator show us that the Mortgage
Lender and the Issuer [Wall Street Bank] are key roles in the
above subprime network. Eac