The American public is, to a large extent, ignorant.
The Clinton administration and the Repubs in Congress gave us the Gramm Leach Bliley Act as well as the Commodities Modernization Act. Combined with CRA we had a nightmare waiting to happen. Bush did make an issue about Freddie and Fannie but no where near enough to do something about it. Congress was also willing to sign off on leverage limits that in the end resulted in the blow ups of Bear Stearns and Lehman among others.
Ya. All this started in the 90s. I worked for the dealer finance market of BofA, at the time. We had to train lenders how to make bad loans that would have been considered a firing offense just a few months before.
I could see the writing on the wall then. That’s why I didn’t buy a house: I knew the market would climb but I wasn’t sharp enough to know when it would crash.