[Brilliant]

“who smelled trouble two years ago”

Only a complete fool would not have smelled trouble two years ago. The question is what did they do about it?

[Froufrou]

“Upbeat mortgage specialists kept repeating that home prices never fall on a national basis or that the Fed could save the market by slashing interest rates.”

I don’t see how anyone could have missed the stories about the Northern California area that priced itself almost completely out of the market. Of course, now I can’t think of the name of the place...

[Mr. Jeeves]

Only a complete fool would not have smelled trouble two years ago. The question is what did they do about it?

Well, the complete fools came to Free Republic and claimed any talk of trouble was coming from Democrats trying to "talk down" the economy. I don't know what the others did. Bought gold, I expect. ;)

[montag813]

Only a complete fool would not have smelled trouble two years ago. The question is what did they do about it?

I shorted Countrywide but got out too soon. MW also was a nice short. What Paulson did was as "pure" a play as I could imagine, since it dealt specifically with subprime.

[verity]

"The question is what did they do about it?"

Paulson, for one, made $billions. ;-)