| > From the aggressive use of NINA loans (in some cases targeted at minorities) Which was being done by the local banks, not the wall street guys. If anything the banks were ripping off the institutional investors they sold these bonds to, by selling mortgages that they wouldn't've taken themselves. > selling mortgage-backed securities while betting AGAINST them Any trade has two sides; anyone you buy a stock from is essentially betting against that stock. > The assumption you're making the insinuation that all homeowners engaged in this kind of activity No more than you're assuming everyone in the finance industry engaged in such activities. > one party (the financial industry) has more training, connections, influence, and knowledge and the other (homeowners) have CNBC, it's a stretch to say that the homeowners are the ones to blame Some of the losses were from complex products that were missold, reverse-amortization mortgages and the like, and yeah, the guys who sold those are responsible for most of the damage they caused. But a lot of the crash was simply people taking out a loan for $x/month when they couldn't afford to pay $x/month (or could until they lost their job), and that's not a complex question where training and experience make a difference. |