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Business greed played a role also. President Clinton was one of the most devious POTUS. He realized he could not raise taxes to support liberal programs, so he reinvented it by partnering with private industry and allowed them to make a lucrative profit in government entitlements. This way he can support liberal programs without raising taxes, and the GOP will avoid vilification for cutting the programs. Wall Street was very intimately involved with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Instead of taking cheap Fed money and have strong loan application practices, they went for liar loans as well as subprime loans, as well as qualifying people for ARM at minimum qualifications just to collect the large fees and points. They just did not care what could happen to the loan applicant after he lies or barely meets qualifications at the ARM teaser rates. As far as the banks are concern, once the applicant signs the paperwork that is his problem, and after six months the faulty mortgage note is sold off, that is the investors problem. Boy did the banks love this government/banker arrangement as they wrote loan after loan and collecting fees and points. Well the scheme finally burst and instead of the bankers taking a haircut for bad decision/greed, Wall Street used their position of too big to fail to coerce the government for a bailout. After all, if all the five major banks declare bankruptcy, the US economy will collapse and suffer from a financial meltdown. In other words after the banks pumped the economy into a bubble, they threaten and blackmailed their nation into a bailout. I remember listening on the radio when one of the wives of the Wall Street technical managers lament that their husbands work long hard hours and they deserve bonuses, and they did nothing wrong. Well the staff at concentration camps also worked hard and did nothing wrong. They still ended up facing prison and firing squad.