Our government decided that anyone that wanted a home should have one! First HUD (Housing Urban Developement) threw out all the rules, then the two government backed mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started the loans because they were backed by the government. People got greedy and signed for mortgages on $300,000 houses when they really could not even afford $100,000.
The banks and mortgage companies saw this and decided to do the same kind of mortgages. They wanted to get in on the big profits so they made similar loans that were not guaranteed. It is almost impossible to believe that this happened, but it did. When the loans failed, the banks and mortgage companies lost millions and they did not have enough cash to pay back their depositors, like you and me!. The FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance) shut many down and severely restricted others.
Now the bankers and mortgage companies want the government to loan them enough money so they can stay in business.

Silliness and greed are never a good combination.

Money. The ability of the banks to re-package these loans to investment bankers allowed them to make more risky loans (the risk was partially offset by packaging them with strong/low risk loans). Since the higher risk loans carried higher interest rates, banks could get more money when they repackaged (the bankers would get more money as these higher interest loans were repaid).

Obviously, by making and selling the loans, the banks just refilled their coffers, which meant that they could turn right around and make more risky loans and re-package them, and so on.

As long as there were investment bankers to buy the packaged loans, there would always be more, and as the borrowers got riskier, the deals and mortgages got more creative

Because they made the assumption that the value of the property would continue to increase and they would be able to get their money back out of that increase. In addition, the federal government created programs and regulations that were aimed at increasing home ownership which loosened credit requirements. The house of cards crashed when the bottom fell out of the real estate market.

very simple. the rules went out the doors when Clinton signed that bill and wall street was backing these loans and greed set in through out the financial industry

Seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess. They were planning on selling off the loans to other entities, so they didn’t care, figuring that by the time people defaulted, they’d have their money from the people they sold the mortgages to, so it would be someone else’s problem.

Greed.