J Wolfsberger,

Someone is selling you a line. Do you honestly believe that the housing bubble was created because of gov attempts to extend mortgages to poor people? Really? Because, you know, I don't recall Flip That House visiting East St Louis or Brownsville. The housing bubble did not take place in the inner cities or even amongst low-income first time homebuyers in general, and the gov regulations you attest to only applied to thrifts and commercial banks.

The vast majority of subprime defaults were mortgages lent out by independent mortgage brokers, who were not covered by any Federal regulations at all, and certainly not any aimed at increasing home ownership amongst the poor (independent brokers put out at least 50% of such loans, twice the number as banks and thrifts).

Schmedlap, your targets are rather broad and miss out on two key ones: the massive expansion of capital available for investment in the past 20 years, and the extraordinary degree of overleveraging made possible by the growth of the "shadow financial system" that grew up to service that capital outside of the regulatory infrastructure that governs banks and thrifts. SIVs, hedge funds, private equity groups, etc. that became so profitable that the inevitably became enmeshed in and took over large parts of Wall St itself. That massive overleveraging is what has turned a standard housing bubble into financial apocalypse.

And who needs lobbyists or campaign donations when you essentially staff the Treasury Department?