"The Germans made just about every bad investment you could have made in the last 10 years. They invested in Icelandic banks. They invested in Greek government bonds. They were heavy into Irish banks, big into Irish banks, and they bought U.S. subprime mortgage bonds."
I didn't interpret knowtheory's comment as implying that German bank's were solely responsible, but I can see how you could make that interpretation.
However, I can't provide direct quantitative information on the quality of the loans summarised by those numbers. Lewis (who seems credible to me) gives accounts of how German banks appear basically to have been taken advantage of (hence the "stupid money" comment) as customers for particularly ill-advised investments.
> Lewis (who seems credible to me) gives accounts of how German banks appear basically to have been taken advantage of (hence the "stupid money" comment) as customers for particularly ill-advised investments.
That part of the story is correct, IMHO. There are a lot of stories around it.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/makingsen...
"The Germans made just about every bad investment you could have made in the last 10 years. They invested in Icelandic banks. They invested in Greek government bonds. They were heavy into Irish banks, big into Irish banks, and they bought U.S. subprime mortgage bonds."