"By packaging mortgages, credit card balances, student loans and other debt into interest-paying bonds, securitization can be a win-win proposition: Investors earn decent interest rates and borrowers have more access to credit, presumably at lower rates than if banks alone were calling the shots," The Los Angeles Times reports. "But as usual when Wall Street is involved, greed took over in the securitization market in recent years. Bonds tied to sub-prime mortgages, the riskiest of such loans, have seen the most dramatic fall-off. But the volume of debt packaged for sale to investors also declined last year in the auto, student-loan and small-business-loan sectors, according to data tracker Inside Mortgage Finance. The harsh truth is, if the securitization business - sullied though it may be - can't celebrate a comeback in the next few years, the pain won't be contained there."