I remember having argument with a (“conservative”) internet stranger around the time of the ’08 financial crisis. His position was that bleeding-heart liberal Congress had mandated subprime loans, and that’s why we were in that mess.

«An analysis conducted for the Wall Street Journal in 2007 showed that the majority of subprime loans were going to people who could have qualified for less expensive prime loans.

….

The public policy justification for allowing subprime loans was that they made the American Dream of homeownership possible for people who did not meet the credit standards to get a cheaper prime mortgage. But the subprime loans we started to see in the early 2000s were primarily marketed to existing homeowners, not people looking to buy—and they usually left the borrower worse off than before the loan. Instead of getting striving people into homeownership, the loans often wound up pushing existing homeowners out.»

#theSumOfUs