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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> In the end it is the borrows.  But you CAN single out the realtors.
> Bankers
> and mortgage companies did not make a concerted effort to entice people to
> buy
> a house they could not afford.   It was realtors who did that.

Some yes but the greed of the consumer feed the mania.

The financial institutions feed into the mania by not requiring proper
documentation so it was possible for people to be greedy.

And it was not Fannie or Freddie, most of the loans were outside their
preview.  It was not CRE as that only required equal treatment.  Before the
relaxed rules and lax enforcement after 2000 all borrows had the equal
opportunity to be turned down.  

Blaming CRE, Fannie, and Freddie are just ways to move attention away from
the failed free market model pushed by those who saw greed as the only
possible model.  The people who removed as many rules as possible then
enforced the remaining rules as little as possible, they are the ones with
the most blame.

Many realtors were greedy as were many bankers but not all of either.  In
any case we will be paying the price for many years to come.

Don Bowen  KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html