The truth is that people will buy all sorts of things because of the way the products are packaged. There needs to be a modicum of regulations to prevent buyers from being taken by charlatans.
Most average Americans believed their Realtors when they were told they could afford the monthly payments on that $700k house. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. And after 2 years you can sell at a profit and move-up to a better house.” That was all fine as long as the market kept on moving up.
Now I think that we need to let this market crash to teach everyone an important lesson. We put criminals in jail as examples not to follow. We just need to let the speculators (flippers or homeowner-gamblers) go bankrupt so future generations won’t make the same mistakes.
Blaming Greenspan and bailing out the REIC won’t help. When children see their parents loose their homes, they’ll be very unlikely to commit the same mistakes. We need to swallow the bitter pill and hope for recovery.