I think you miss an important point here patientrenter:
[quote=patientrenter]analyst, when I read your argument, what I see is, to paraphrase: “Those people over there guarding the gold at Fort Leavenworth left the door open. Other people are stealing the gold. Let’s blame the people who left the door open, and not assign any blame or responsibility on the people who stole the gold. Hell, they hardly even stole it, because whenever you see a door open, everything inside is yours for the taking.”
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It’s true. Except for those guys that were guarding the door? They got paid big bucks for guarding the door. They got paid even BIGGER bucks for leaving the door open. In fact, they did more than leave the door open. They went in, grabbed the gold and hand delivered it to those people who “stole” it. And then went searching, begging for more borrowers to “steal” other people’s gold.
There are no innocent here. Not the investor/lenders/packagers who funded and bought the debt. Not the direct lenders, loan brokers, loan agents, underwriters and processors who facilitated the loans. Not the government regulators who had their head in the sand while the gold was being stolen. And not the borrowers, who knowingly or not, borrowed more than they should have. And last, but certainly not least, the financial wizards who created and traded derivatives based on that debt.
