[noobamamama]

You need to ask why the brokers were pushing mortgages to the unqualified.

I am a member of the NAR and a Real Estate Broker...Many of these Mortgage Brokers preyed on immigrants of their own country of origin and didn’t care...it made money for them...Many of us saw this whole thing coming.

[Rome2000]

Many of us saw this whole thing coming.

Then go and slit your wrists.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"Many of these Mortgage Brokers preyed on immigrants of their own country of origin and didn’t care...it made money for them..."

I don't doubt that. But at the same time, don't underestimate the motive force of the Community Reinvestment Act, as turbocharged starting in the Clinton years. Please review the documentation I linked. It's a couple examples that illustrate the top-down effort to "persuade" (that is, arm-twist) lending institutions to fund ethnically-preferred individuals that, in a saner era, would have been regarded as uncreditworthy. There's plenty more where that came from. Add the bundling "securitization" of the resulting risky mortgages, and you have the framework for the current crisis, which hollowed-out the credit derivative pyramid on a global scale.

What you witnessed was the rubber meeting the road, the foot-soldiers making it happen. What I linked regards Congress' meddling in the interest of social engineering and political correctness. We're both right, in other words. Our scenarios dovetail and complement each other, and I'm learning from your perspective and experience. Please learn from mine as well.