No, it’s not a typographical error, it’s a great play on the concept of, “The Greenspan Put“
The indispensable Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture found an article of that title by Alan Kohler:
As Alan Greenspan said in his testimony to Congress last night: “With … home prices rising, delinquency and foreclosure rates were deceptively modest. Losses were minimal. To the most sophisticated investors in the world, (mortgage securities) were wrongly viewed as a ‘steal’.”
Unsophisticated investors didn’t stand a chance.
Now the “steal” is going to work the other way. Mortgage securities vehicles everywhere are being liquidated because their risk is being repriced – in most cases dramatically, to the point where investors don’t want their money in them at all.
….
I am amused, though I would disagree with the characterization. A putz has a head.
This has been another episode of Yiddish vocabulary.