C is for Credit Default Swaps, defined for me by a Wall Street watcher as: Risk whatever you want, and we insure it; risk too much, taxpayers insure it.The other 21 letters are pretty good too. Read the whole thing here.
L is for leverage (a means of maximizing your losses), liar loans, Lehman (pronounced "lemon")--and the losses/liabilities that unite them all.
M is for where it all started: the mortgage (which, aptly, means death-pledge). Like the dog, it comes in a variety of breeds, "sub-prime" being a cross between a pit bull and a chihuahua.
Q is for quants, who forgot that, every so often, past performance is no indicator of anything at all.
S is for securitization, the process by which one passes off cat food as caviar.
HT: The Big Picture.