“ Poor underwriting practices were a key driver of the subprime-mortgage crisis in the U.S., the International Monetary Fund wrote in 2008. ”
No, that would be credit default swaps and fraudulently listing crap mortgages listed as grade A because they were bundled. But the old fable remains that it was caused by low quality people taking loans.
The effect of that is to pretend that the banks and insuring agencies were scammed by these low rent ghetto people, and not vice versa.
The buyers of the “mortgage-backed” securities were scammed by nearly all involved.