[dhoulb]

To extend and correct your analogy: it'd be like if Googlers and Facebookers, and 20 other companies had to create and continuously improve software that unintentionally drove up real estate prices, in order to engage in a highly competitive market.

Their actions, writing the software, aren't necessarily malicious or risky. To their mind they're just doing what everyone else is doing and trying to create the best system.

Then they have an awards ceremony to celebrate the best software. Maybe in poor taste, but they're not even really considering the real estate market. Their game is software, and the financiers game is profit.

Like we don't generally think about the lives of people who make our clothes or computers, because our game is fashion or programming.

It's groupthink that caused the financial crisis (and most other problems), not necessarily malice.