You need to read about the housing crisis, because you're just factually incorrect here. Yes, people received loans they should never have signed for. But these people were targeted by banks to default; these are people who were uneducated and pressured into signing contracts they did not have time to read or understand.


Why were they not given time to read or understand them? Do they not have the ability to read? Do they not have the ability to understand or did they make a choice to sign on without reading and understanding? Did these banks march these people by point of gun into their offices to get a loan or did these people come into the banks ASKING for the money/loan?

Don't you think there's a reason why poor African-American and Hispanic residential areas were foreclosed upon at a much MUCH higher rate than everyone else. It's called predatory lending, and banks go to neighborhoods where people can't generally get loans and offer these amazing deals. People everywhere need loans, especially poor people. The choice is either don't get a loan because you know you can't afford it and lose your house/don't eat/etc, or get a loan from a bank offering amazing interest rates and you think you can afford it except oops! Three months in, your interest rate triples!


Oops? What? Oops? Um, there is no "oops" about it. It was written on the papers they signed. As I said, ignorance is not an excuse. And not everyone who foreclosed was on an ARM, either. ARM's were common for overleveraged buyers but they aren't even the prime culprit behind foreclosures in this country.

Why is it easier to believe the MILLIONS OF PEOPLE had the exact same thing happen to them all over the country, but it must be something they did wrong? If millions of people all have the same symptoms of an illness, do people say "oh, it's their fault. They should own their sickness." Or do they say "there is a disease running rampant across the country, getting people sick. We have to find the disease." Predatory lending is a disease, and massive foreclosures are the symptom of a very very very broken financial system that caters to the rich who can afford to victimize the por.


I agree that there was a very broken financial system, but I don't believe it was catering to the rich to victimize the poor. Plenty of people simply bought homes and were living above their means. Frankly, we live in a very superficial society where people want to show off their success through their belongings. Through their homes and their belongings. And banks offered this farce claim to success with these loans. Quite frankly, when a poor person was shown a really nice home at a ridiculously low payment warning signs, bells, whistles, and flashing red lights should have gone off - but they didn't. Why? Because they loved the idea of getting something great at a great deal. What's that saying again? If something sounds too good to be true it usually is? People were going against their better judgment because they wanted what they wanted and it was dangled in front of them by these assholes offering sub-prime loans. They failed when they went against their better judgment and they need to own that piece of the failure, too.

Am I saying that banks don't own a piece of the blame? Absolutely not. But the blame is everywhere. Not just on wall street.