New York museum opens exhibit on credit crisis

"Tracking the Credit Crisis" provides a timeline of the events that led to the current recession and translates the catchphrases of the economic downturn such as "securitization," "liquidity," and "derivative" for the average person.

"We're now entering what may well be the most challenging man-made calamity in modern experience, a global financial crisis of unprecedented size, speed, interconnectedness and complexity," said Lee Kjelleren, the chief executive of the museum, who said he hoped the exhibit would help the public understand events as they unfold.

The exhibit records events on Wall Street from February 2007 to February 2009 highlighting everything from the announcement by "The Concise Oxford Dictionary" that it would include the terms "subprime" and "credit crunch" in its next edition to Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy on September 15, 2008.