Let's face it folks. We're all to blame for this mess. Rich, middle class, or dirt poor.

Remember what it was like...in say...2006? The home equity line offers in the mail box. The people you knew who were getting multiple homes and becoming landlords? The new SUVs in the parking lot a work, when you knew the people couldn't afford them.

That TV show "Flip This House."

Some of us were poor, with half a job, who cobbled together some no-dock, nothing down loan to get into a house and didn't really think about how to make the payment. Heck, just get a bunch of other half employed relatives or friends together to live in the place with you for 6 months, help you with the payment, then flip it for a quick profit. If the flip fell through you could always just walk away; you had nothing when you went into the house, so you were no worse off.

Or maybe you were middle class and just kept refinancing all the equity out of the place to buy all the stuff you never could afford before. It was easy, just sign on the dotted line and you got a new mortgage, and a check for the "money out" and you were sitting in a brand new Hummer. Gee whiz, you could even write off the higher interest payments on your taxes. Who cares about the equity you lost...the house just kept going up. As long as it went up, we'd suck the equity out for toys like a weasel sucks an egg empty.

And then there were the "I want to be a millionaire landlord" types who piled loan after loan on top of loan to keep buying rental properties because we were always told you can't miss with restate. Renters fall behind? OK, just fill the house with Section 8 renters and let dear old Uncle Sam pay you the rent. Who cares what happens to the neighborhood.

I don't even need to mention the squadrons of brokerage houses, loan brokers, real estate agents, bankers, or other camp followers who got rich...or wanted to get rich on the housing bubble. As a nation, indeed a world, had a feeding frenzy on a rotting carcase of debt.

And I don't remember ANYONE, including those who are now finger pointing at their particular scapegoats, saying "hey people, we're going to work ourselves into a financial Hell."

Saying stuff like that during the housing bubble was like being a spoil sport at an orgy.

Excuse me bud, I didn't do any of that. I put 20% down on my house. I moved into a crappier place than I could have. I got a good fixed rate. I went to work every day. And you know what? My mortgage is still lower than just about all of the rents in the area. HA!

That's the point, it wasn't EVERYBODY! So when the "Right" tries to lay some of it at the foot of the liberal lettuce heads, it's only because the "right" doesn't deserve 100% of the blame.

Some of the blame has to go to the people who said "yes" in the first place. The point isn't that they are to blame for the scope of the mess, but they aren't the victims that they claim to be either. Read the damm contract.

With all due respect Sigmond, IMO even you are partially the blame.

If you got a mortgage at a rate below about say...7%, you benefited from the root of this mess...easy money.

Easy money, including mortgage rates, are one of many reasons so much debt has piled over our heads. So, unless you have a very high (at least by todays standard) mortgage rate you're right in there with the rest of us.

Also, if you have any stock investments, you benefited from the easy money trap. After 9/11, when the fed rate plunged, most companies found huge pools of easy money to finance speculative ventures. As those companies took advantage of those pools their growth rates went up, along with their earnings...driving up their stock price. I'm speaking in general terms but the principles are sound. If you were invested in the world equity markets for the last 10 years (that would include 401k, 457, IRA, or pension) you benefited from the easy money/asset bubble, and their resultant debt implosion we're now facing.

So, with all due respect, unless you forced your bank ( out of some moral or ethical altruism on your part) to give you an abnormally high mortgage rate, had no stock investments, and no pension fund for the last 10 years...you're part of this too.

By the way, at first glance I agreed with your rebuttal...partially because ,like you, I put down a large down payment on my home, and bought less of a home/neighborhood than I could afford. So, I too thought I wasn't part of the mess. Until I thought about it. Turns out I am. Thanks for your rebuttal.