More on the financial crisis

To really understand how affected everyone is by the financial meltdown attributed to subprime mortgages (hear my cynism) you have to hear about what's going on in Europe . . . . how about this, from the Bloomberg wire . . . .

Bradford and Bingley, the U.K. lender struggling to raise cash in a rights offering, must honor a 2006 deal to buy about 2.1 billion pounds ($4.1 billion) of mortgages by the end of next year from GMC LLC.

Customer payments are more than three months late on 5 percent of loans already purchased from Detroit-based GMAC, trying to avert bankruptcy for its residential mortgage unit. That's more than double the average rate for mortgages held by the Bingley, England-based bank, it said yesterday in a statement.