"2. what annoys me is that these "unsuspecting investors" were professional buyers. It is people who's job it is to do their homework and understand these produ

"2. what annoys me is that these "unsuspecting investors" were professional buyers. It is people who's job it is to do their homework and understand these products. We are not talking about selling complex products to grannies. These are highly educated, highly paid finance professional who simply did not do their job of vetting what they were buying. Now if Goldman made misrepresentations (i.e. lied) on the nature of the assets, then there is clearly fraud, and by reading quickly the DoJ announcement it seems to be what Goldman is accused of. But in my opinion investors bear a very large part of the blame for this credit bubble. It's not a case of nasty Goldman vs nice unsuspecting investors." Well, it's a combination. Goldman packages up crappy mortgages as bonds, then has the rating agencies rate them and magically transform them into Triple AAA instead of junk. The due diligence required of the investor, even a profession investor, is rather extreme - and having the rating agencies in your pocket only makes that worse.