I think your thought is probably right to an extent. The underlying problem is that these prospective homeowners should never have qualified for a home loan in the first place, whether they used up the extra in needs or for frills.
Definitely; the government didn’t want people to know how bad it was, and the borrowers didn’t want to accept the permanence of what had transpired. Globalization destroyed much of our economy, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Young people today probably see this much more clearly now; they would have been our next generation of homeowners, but that dream is dead. Many I know won’t even commit to buying cars - they just lease (and they aren’t high-end cars, either). Families are out of the question entirely...