Honestly, it’s kind of unbelievable, well not unbelievable … shocking, well not shocking, really … disappointing – it’s really disappointing that Krugman needs to publish a brief history of our financial times just to make sure everyone really knows what happens. We were screwed, people, by the very people who should have known better.
And yet …
Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question.