Posted By:
Jim VBDavid,
<<Those people were preyed upon by the lenders who knew and didn't care one whit that the loans would be defaulted upon. >>
You believe too much what you read in the paper or hear in a sound bite on TV. You are out of your depth in discussing economic issues. Stick to Physics. If every mortgage loan written in the last 8 years defaulted, it wouldn't add up to a crisis of this size. To blame it all on lenders OR borrowers is an oversimplification.
Look at Credit Default Swaps (CDS). Look at ratings services that gave AAA ratings and then pulled them arbitrarily, causing unexpected margin calls. Look at naked short sellers. All have a bigger part of this than brokers and borrowers.
I thought rocket scientists were supposed to be smart.