The Wall Street Journal uncovers what happened, but we’ve discussed it quite a bit here already. The banks were allowed to over leverage themselves to the point of failure.
Sure, relaxed rules on home ownership were a contributing factor to the downfall, but that was a symptom of the disease of easy credit, not the sickness itself.
In this first part, note around the 4:15 mark how the era of easy money was at its worst during the period from 2002 to 2006.
