But the tragedy is not that dishonest borrowers and brokers signed off on liar-loans, greedy bankers packaged time bombs, yield hungry speculators bet on AAA-rated trash or that pandering politicians let taxpayers guarantee mortgages in the first place.
Their number-crunching reached a nadir in the more recent mortgage debacle, which was exacerbated by their willingness to award AAA ratings to thousands of structured-mortgage time-bombs.