The mortgage companies share a lot of the blame in this. Yeah, those people were stupid for taking a mortgage they couldn't afford, but mortgage companies and brokers frequently pushed them to do it and showed them all sorts of ***** that would convince them they could. Who's gonna be the more knowledgeable person in this situation? The mortgage company. And that's a problem when they are purposely screwing people just to get a mortgage signed.A few years ago, I got approved for a $720k mortgage. I made $78,500 a year. Do the math, there's no way in hell I could have afforded it long term. The mortgage broker tried all sorts of ***** to get me to buy a $700k plus house, interest only ARM's, reasoning that I would get a raise and make more money by the time it matured, etc. He was persuasive. But I knew better and bought a house for under $200k with a 30 yr fixed. A lot of people didn't though, they took the money and lived it up until their ARM matured, and now their houses sit empty and their credit is ***** for the next 7 or 10 years.Some guys were working in conjunction with appraisers, taking a $500k house, inflating the value to $800k, and then giving the buyer $300k cash out to make payments on the house with until they could get a raise or sell the house for a profit and make their money back. These ***** are all going to jail. The FBI is involved. I know, because my neighbor is a builder, and the FBI was at his house a few months ago. He didn't have anything to do with it, but his mortgage guy and his mortgage guy's appraiser did.