Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities

Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. 

Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them
with turds. 

Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade
chocolates.  These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors.
Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime.  Suddenly nobody
trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide. 

Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these
boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market
for turds returns to normal. 

Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good
chocolates, are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted. 

Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest".