Man I agree 100% noone made folks buy or live above their means but there was alot of influence by Politicians. I feel the policies of Jimmy Carter on getting low income/poverty folks loans for houses and Clinton enforcing the idea with more regulations helped cause the meltdown. Once the groundwork was layed noone stopped the madness. Fannie and Freddie and so on......

The terrible part is like you said...a generation (or slice of america) who had little to no understanding of how to budget their lives jumped on board and applied for loans because banks were basically mandated to loan to these subprime apps or lose. I don't know how many people I heard of living beyond their means and then filing for bankruptcy. Had two working for us. What I heard was the gubment will work it out or it's not my fault.I guess I feel alot of americans, banks and politicians were not held responsible enough.

To me bottom line is they had a carrot dangled in front of them (by policies of law makers) of the american dream with little understanding of how to pay for it.

I blame Obama the most. (joke)