weird wally wednesday, page-126

i think we're in serious trouble..the numbers are just staggering.

Bill Gross, chief investment officer at the world's No. 1 bond fund PIMCO, characterises the subprime crisis as a "$US1 trillion ($A1.09 trillion) problem."

Greenspan said about $US900 billion ($A979.91 billion) of subprime mortgages had been securitised into fixed-income instruments, and the excess level of unsold homes was driving price declines that are eroding the value of the securities backed by those mortgages.

"The critical issue on the whole subprime, and by extension the whole financial system, rests very narrowly on getting rid of probably 200,000-300,000 excess units in inventories in the United States," he said.