Originally Posted by statdoc

It is such a simple "sound bite" answer to say greed, high CEO salaries, or whatever. The truth is that in a prior administration (which happened to be a liberal Dem one), it was made a requirement that lending institutions had to lend home mortgage funds to folks who didn't otherwise actually qualify. These loans were done under the guise of providing "affordable home ownership" to those in "economically depressed areas". In fact, it was bad business, and now those forced to do that bad business are suffering (as are the rest of us due to the repercussions).