| Quote: | |  | |
| Definitely also to blame. But the thing is, many of them were practically given house with no down payment and no proof of income. So these people made a personal irresponsible decision, and they do suffer the consequence for it. | |
| | |
What they were offered by the banks had the government's explicit endorsement. They naively believed it was safe and essentially risk-free. It was only "risk-free" in that neither the borrower, nor the lender, but the taxpayer was ultimately saddled with the risk burden, since the government endorsed it and supplied the credit.
I'm not saying the buyers/borrowers share no blame — just that their gullible, unquestioning trust of the U.S. government is somewhat comprehensible, even if it was misguided and misplaced.