Not all of these toxic assets are loans but essentially insurance, i.e. credit default swaps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap http://en.wikipe

Not all of these toxic assets are loans but essentially insurance, i.e. credit default swaps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap If you bought some of these for 1 penny you would be obligated to pay out money to cover some of these bets that have already gone bad.