> this wasn't a case of generally looser
> credit. This was a case of loose credit narrowly targeted at
> a specific purpose, namely amateur real-estate speculation.
Feh. All that 'amateur real estate speculation' doesn't add up to the shit that we're in; the real evil here is large unregulated markets (the unregulated half of the CDO market, plus CDSs and specials like synthetic CDOs) and a conflict of interest with ratings organizations. The rest of that 'irresponsible poor people' crap is just right-wing trope. Shame on you :)
/jordan