i'm so tired of hearing that b.s. Line. Yes, banks exploited the rules put in place by government. What else would you expect them to do? Did they sometimes step over the line? Without question. But, they are certainly not wholly responsible for the financial crisis. When bill clinton made home ownership for all americans a priority at his state of the union address the die was cast. You want to hold the bank presidents responsible, but you don't feel the actual individuals who who bought homes they clearly could not afford and ultimately defaulted on should share in the blame at all right? If you're going to be pissed because banks failed to do proper due diligence, how come you place no blame at all on those who signed their name and blatantly lied? News flash, banks never would have gotten into the kind of subprime lending that let to the crash if were not for the government mandate to put low income buyers into homes they had no hope of affording. There was no mbs market before then, and no bank would have considered that type of "risky lending" had the government not pushed for it while guaranteeing the loans through fannie and freddie. Were corners cut? Yes. Did everyone including the gse's and bank regulators know about it? You bet your ass they did. Everyone knew they could flat out lie on a stated income loan for the low price of 1/2 of a percent added to the rate. School teachers and just about every other average citizen new about it. Do you really think the regulators and gse's had no idea what was going on? Stop listening to the propaganda and think for a minute.
Without question the banks were culpable. So were the gse's, regulators, politicians and wait for it.. Consumers. My question to you is why you don't feel the folks that actually lied about their income and signed their name to mortgages they could not possibly afford bear no responsibility whatsoever?
Yeah man. It was all those bastard management types. It's a conspiracy, and i had no idea what was going on. Don't blame me, i'm too stupid to know i wasn't supposed to make schit up on my mortgage application. Besides, they let me get away with it, so it's all their fault.
Rant over... Please continue with the pro/con union snoozefest.