Posted by CCS , Aug 17, 2007 8:15PM

The Fortune article pissed me off so much I had to send the author this email:

Nobody held a gun to people's heads to borrow too much money to buy homes they couldn't afford in products that don't make any sense. Nobody was forcibly sent to refinance with cash-out mortgages to go buy a bunch of junk they don't need. To what rational borrower does it make sense to borrow 100% of the purchase price of a home, anyway?

It was overreaching aspiration and greed that caused the mess we find ourselves in now.

Certainly, Wall Street enabled this. The ratings agencies are massively at fault and without the liquidity from China and others, none of it would have been possible to begin with. What about homebuilders who pimped their wares to the masses and helped arrange financing? Mortgage brokers who fraudulently completed applications for borrowers in order to qualify them for the home of their dreams? The root of the problem is really an American consumer that is not, generally, thrifty nor rational when it comes to their collective personal financial affairs.

I would say as fiscal examples go, the American consumer has a pretty poor one in their own government. The media doesn't help here, either. Just look at what is glorified in print and on TV. MTV Cribs, Flip This House, What You Get For The Money, are three examples of real estate shows that immediately spring to mind. What about the get-rich-quick real estate schemes sold on TV? Americans want the good life, even if they can't afford it, and the media serves it up on a silver platter.

So, why is Wall Street the proverbial fall guy here? Because a bunch of folks made silly amounts of money? Wall Street is simply a financial intermediary--a middle-man--and that is a fact. The Street's customers are those who have capital and those who are in need of capital. Hardly, the root of the problem, in my opinion. Sadly, Wall Street will bear the brunt of the lawsuits. After all, that's where the money is and that seems to be the point of your article.