That's a damn good question. In both the US and England, it was party time. Big business was making money off consumers in every way; high interest credit cards, monster mortgage loans, and every other kind of vehicle to separate people from their money. But don't get me wrong, the people borrowing the money were at fault too, borrowing money like the end of the world was coming.
I know in my home state of Florida, Builders couldn't build subdivisions fast enough. People couldn't borrow off their homes fast enough. Every weekend Home Depot and Lowes were packed to the walls with people making expensive and unnecessary changes to their brand new subdivision homes. It was a party and all of us, myself included, were drunk on the punch. So this is what you get when no one is watching the farm. Chaos and over consumption. But I do place most of the blame on Wall Street because they are the architects of all this destruction. Those big payday boys and girls were wild with greed and they took all of us down the pipes with them.
I can't remember where I saw it, but there was an interview with an economist on TV a few years before the bottom fell out of the housing market. He hit the nail on the head by saying that for the past decade, corporate American has been using the American consumer as a cash cow and someday the bill was going to come due. Well ladies and gents, the bill has come due and we're all in the kitchen doing dishes. Most of us are anyway.
Have a great week ;)
