Originally Posted by Sly

The sellers and the buyers are getting blamed. The interesting thing is the government pushed the sellers into offering the loans. You don't hear about that often, do you?

At the end of the day, I, as an individual, have a responsibility to purchase things that only I can afford. Whether or not somebody else extends a ridiculous amount of credit to me has little bearing on my personal responsibility. If I cannot personally afford a $1 million loan, it is on me to not take the person offering the loan up on their offer. To deny that I have that personal responsibility is just absolutely ridiculous.

Greed was in everyone's eyes. People were buying homes that they couldn't afford because they thought they could flip them in two years for a higher profit. Too few people sat back and thought to themselves "gosh, people aren't going to be able to afford higher price houses like this forever. Maybe this isn't a good idea?" Banks were loaning people money because they simply didn't care. The government was encouraging banks to loan money because they wanted happy voters that were now able to buy nice fancy houses, even though they couldn't afford them. Individuals were pressuring the government to pressure banks so that they could live next to the Jones' while making a modest salary.

It's a huge cycle that everyone plays a part of. Everyone is responsible. The banks should pay, the government should pay, and so should the people that were irresponsible.