Most people could have predicted it and many people did. This includes not only people like Mike Burry, George Soros and others that made money out of the whole

Most people could have predicted it and many people did. This includes not only people like Mike Burry, George Soros and others that made money out of the whole mess, but also those bastards in Goldman Sachs who after touting and selling housing debt derivatives for the entire bubble ended up being short on housing just when the bubble burst. Multiple people in academia predicted the crash. Nouriel Roubini (spelling is wrong) Peter Schif, every economist that ever posted on Counterpunch, etc. And also of course most ordinary people predicted it. If you look at the housing forums on the Internet from about 3 to 4 years ago you will see that most people were sure there would be a crash and only people that were already deeply invested in real estate were trying to think of ever more creative ways to deny it. So Greenspan's statements speak more about him than the actual reality. He and the Bush government just surrounded themselves with economists from one very narrow school of thought and did not listen to anyone else. It is not that people did not predict the recession, it is that Greenspan would not listen to anyone who predicted it, therefore nobody that he bothered to listen to predicted it.