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Comment by simon_ | Hacker News Reader

I have firsthand knowledge of this market. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to buy bonds like this for yourself if you are not an institutional investor.

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If that's so how did NPR go talk to this guy in Kansas and get one? They don't have a lot of money, and they aren't a bank. I bet this guy in Kansas is getting a lot of phone calls like this one.

It's not impossible, just hard. There's no exchange you can go to, and dealers will generally not work with you if you're a small fry.

In NPR's case, I'd say: (a) it looks like they worked directly with the seller, not with a bank/broker/dealer, and (b) their foundation has $250MM of assets, so they're not exactly a small fry (http://www.npr.org/about/statements/fy2008/fy08nprfoundation... [pdf]).

It sounded to me that they just went in on it with the guy from Kansas. They bought it for however much, and NPR chipped in $1000, which is why they say if they keep getting ~$140 monthly payments through to November, they'd break even.

there was some talk of selling toxic stuff from TARP participants to private investors. IIRC Blackrock and/or PIMCO were even supposed to construe ETFs that pretty much anyone in the world could buy. Unfortunately banks realized pretty soon that they themselves can make a lot of money by cherry picking and selling those assets, so financial lobby killed this effort quickly. That's my understanding anyway.

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