If you believe mortgage purchasers are such idiots that they cannot understand a simple household budget, then we are all in trouble. The fact is that many, ma

If you believe mortgage purchasers are such idiots that they cannot understand a simple household budget, then we are all in trouble. The fact is that many, many of them were trying to win a real estate lottery. Here's [1] FRED mortgage payments as a percent of disposable income leading up the crash. Notice the record all time high? That is people choosing to run up debt for decades until it popped. Here's [2] the FRED series on household debt as percent of disposable income leading up the crash. Again, note the all time high and run up period. Here's [3] FRED series on household debt to GDP - same result. So you can claim somehow people were cattle with zero input on any financial choices or consequences, but that's simply not backed by the evidence. People were choosing to believe that the gains would never stop. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MDSP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MDSP [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TDSP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TDSP [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HDTGPDUSQ163N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HDTGPDUSQ163N