As in previous years, I will present to you the general thrust of our report, which will be published later today. The report analyses trends and differences in the characteristics of housing loans, in the funding of bank loans, and in the spread between mortgage interest rates and the funding costs of banks.
The tools involved, such as CDO squared and off-balance sheet vehicles, are much more complex, thus making the nature of the crisis more complicated. BIS Review 60/2009  3  Additionally, before the current crisis, the pervasive view among policy-makers and academia was that, even if a bubble were to burst, aggressive ex-post monetary easing could prevent a sharp deterioration in economic conditions.