Feasting on the forms of precariousness and social dislocation it had itself helped to create (and which had fed its growth), the financial market sank its fangs into a mortgage market where, thanks to deregulation, so-called "NINJAs" (urban poor with No Income, No Job, or Assets) were offered loans to purchase or renovate houses. … These loans, whose conditions were rarely disclosed by the unscrupulous salesmen (who worked on commission), offered low interest rates initially, or until debtors missed a payment, when they would skyrocket. … Sub-prime borrowers found themselves owing double, sometimes triple the value of their homes, taking out yet more sub-prime loans to cover their mounting debts (McNally 2011, 102–108; Wyly 2012).

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 154