[cobra de capell]

I'm sure Congress helped start this mess, but the banks compounded the problem with interesting new mortgages, like mortgages where you only had to pay interest (no principal).

Technically, it wasn't the banks - it was the Mortgage Brokers, for example Countrywide that created the sub-prime mortgages - Mortgage Brokers and Mortgage Companies are not regulated as closely as real banks. But they were thrilled to have the Congress, FANNIE and FREDDIE lower their standards to lower than whale poop.

Most house lending is done through Mortgage Brokers and Dealers with FREDDIE and FANNIE buying and packaging those loans - selling the resulting CMO's to banks and other investors as AA paper. A few of the big banks were also into directly offering long term home loans, but only the big banks were involved directly.

Yes, banks were involved but also were forced to buy into what Congress wanted done through CRA. Trust me, this entire fiasco comes out of Congress with primarily Democrats responsible but also some Republicans.