It's all becoz of the software bug
If you've seen the movie Office Space, you must remember the priceless expression on the faces of the 3 software programmers, when they found out that their money swindling virus that was supposed to deduct a few pennies only, has amassed a whooping $305,326.13 only a day after it was introduced. And this was followed by the declaration from Micheal Bolton with a dead-pan humor that it must've been a bug in the code that he overlooked.
Phew...sometimes real life follows the reel life!!!
The estimated 500+ billion dollar losses in sub-prime will now be attributed to a software glitch that apparently caused wrong AAA+ ratings for these stinky investments.
Somewhere in some corner of this zaleem IT world, entrapped in a cubicle, a computer programmer is scanning through lines and lines of if-else loops and is sweating a lot. Don't worry bro, pretty soon to save their own skin and regain the investor's faith in this "your guess is as good or as bad as mine" type silly economics, they'll implement another mandatory auditing like SOX or BASEL2.
So wipe those beads of sweat and hang on there.... you'll be back in action in no time adding more else-s to the ifs.