I’m looking to buy a house so I’m going through mortgage stuff, so you inevitably hear a bit about the context for the 2008 financial crisis.

Now, what I’ve seen a lot from this perspective is that what the banks did wrong was to lend too much money to “anyone who applied”. This narrative seems to be the justification for lots of the more invasive and punitive mortgage practices 17 years later.

To me, this is blaming the poor people who needed money for housing, then jacking rates above what they knew borrowers couldn’t afford. It drops all blame from the banks who, if anything, are portrayed as “too generous” in this period, which was sadly ruined by idiot poors not paying their bills.

Now it might just be my anecdotal biases at play, but it all gives me the same vibe as carbon footprints: Sure, maybe it wasn’t ideal for people to be sold loans who weren’t likely to afford them later on, but you motherfuckers made the system whereby housing is either consolidated by shitty landlords or locked behind a lifelong debt designed to bleed you dry for the privilege of “owning” something.