What does the Danube mean to us?
A spectacular endowment from the nature, attracting and enticing masses of tourists. An element of the city view, implying a price advantage for owners of properties with a panorama. Annoyance for city people who have to cross one of the crowded bridges, twice a day. A transportation channel that is efficient, environment-friendly, not to mention safe.
Does the river mean any more than that?
On the American mortgage market, in a tough competitive situation, financial institutions’ excess appetite for risk has provoked an avalanche that was not restricted to the local residential property market and did not come to a halt at the borders of the United States. That crisis, having started about one and a half years ago – and considered to be a temporary phenomenon at first – keeps taking victims even now, due to the complex character of investment products; and we are far from sure that we are approaching the end of that process.
