Cornered by Mike Baldwin for August 02, 2011

Unfortunately, it was that easy to get a mortgage in the US. And before anyone starts ranting that people should be more responsible and not buy houses they can’t afford: Banks and mortgage companies lend out (invest) their customers’ and shareholders’ money when they give a mortgage and THEY should be responsible for lending it to people who can pay it back. Financial institutions can easily get information on jobs and credit ratings. They were just too lazy and greedy to do business properly. And they got Wall Street to repackage those bad mortgages and credit card debts as derivatives, disguised them as good investments, and caused financial havoc world wide.