Housing and real estate prices were artificially jacked up since the early 1970's in a "price fixing" ploy by America's banks and real estate firms.

How else could the price of housing go from approximately 2 and a half times the average worker's annual salary in the 1960's (say $15.000 to $20.000 per house) to $300.000 to $500.000 per house in the year 2003? Most US Federal Govt workers plus teachers etc. earn,even these days in the area of $25.000 to $45.000 per annum.So 2 and a half times say a $30.000 salary is $75.000 - and just where can you buy a half decent house for that money now in the USA?
Whats really happened in this financial crisis is that the big banks and real estate companies have,in their monopolistic greed,so overpriced the housing market that it was out of the reach of most American workers.Fewer and fewer people were buying homes.What "panicky" banks and real estate firms did next,just for their greedy cash flow was to start giving loans to almost anybody,because making some money on quick loans was better than having nothing at all coming in!

The biggest CROOKS in the banking and real estate market didn't care what happened because they made sure to fully insulate themselves from any financial or criminal "liabilities" plus now with the "bail out" (which they of course engineered) they have sucked in even more piles of easy money from the taxes of average Americans workers! Touche Wall St.!

I can see why the banking houses pay people to attempt to paint this as a mortgage and housing default when it's the fraudulent money system they set up with criminal deregulation, the planned effects of NAFTA GATT etc and never satiated greed.
housing default --- 100 billion
Payment to banking houses -- nearing two trillion in the last month.

do you see anything here?