Where the mortgage meltdown began

The U.S. government's planned $700 billion rescue of the nation's financial system looks different when viewed from Cleveland.

You could say the financial crisis began here, and in the poor neighborhoods of older cities like ours, when mortgage lenders gave out reckless loans, and Wall Street investors bought them in bundles.

Major financial institutions that invested heavily in subprime loans have collapsed. The Treasury Department wants to buy up bad mortgages and mortgage-related securities, to try to stop the lending crisis.

In July 2007, I told the story of one house on Cleveland's West Side and the people who lived there -- aiming to explain how bad loans hurt one address and several families, then a neighborhood, then our entire economy. You can read my article here.