[slv77]

A lot of those regular folks could have kept their money in US Government bond funds or in FDIC backed bank accounts as well. They invested in commercial real-estate paper because they wanted higher returns than those bonds funds would provide. Usually higher returns means accepting higher risk.

Maybe to level the playing field the government should publish a list of investments with high returns and implicit government guarantees so that we’d all know where to put or retirement money. It really screws with my retirement planning to only find out after the fact.