BBC

The BBC has a good Timeline.

From 2004-2006:

After a two year period between 2004 and 2006 when US interest rates rose from 1% to 5.35%, the US housing market begins to suffer, with prices falling and a rise in homeowners defaulting on their mortgages.

Default rates on sub-prime loans - high risk loans to clients with poor or no credit histories - rise to record levels ...

Then the sub-prime mortgage brokers start going bankrupt.

It's interesting, and telling, that there is no mention of builders going bankrupt.  But residential construction lost over 500 000 workers, and probably far more if the undocumented illegals were to be included.

Because finance IS crucial to successful growth, there are good reasons to be extra careful with the financial system.  However, there's been far too huge growth in Finance, fuelled by the easy profits of mispricing CDS risk and collecting fees w/o giving true value added.

It's easy to understand that overbuilding in houses means a huge drop in construction, and a drop in construction jobs.  Similary, overbuilding in Financial Instruments like Credit Default Swaps, means a huge drop in finance jobs.

All the Big Banks are insolvent, we should be preparing Pre-Packaged Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceedings, to wipe out shareholders and most bondholders and all top executives.  Let their true loan assets be sold, and their toxic assets be held for a massive clearing house matching  & consolidation exercise to be held by the SEC / Fed / Treasury / Justice.

Bankruptcy of the bad BigBanks will allow space for good mid-banks to grow.  The country needs growth, not salvage of insolvent orgs in an overbuilt industry.