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. ;)
“Banks happily loaned whatever amount borrowers wanted as long as the banks could then sell the loan, pushing the risk onto Fannie Mae (ultimately taxpayers) or onto buyers of mortgage backed securities. Now that it has become clear that a trillion dollars in mortgage loans will not be repaid, Fannie Mae is under pressure not to buy risky loans and investors do not want mortgage backed securities. This means that the money available for mortgages is falling, and house prices will keep falling, probably for 5 years or more. This is not just a subprime problem. All mortgages will be harder to get.”
This is from patrick.net/housing/crash. I don’t think I would want to play ‘screw your neighbor’ with Mr. Paulson. But he’d be wise to remember that what goes around comes around.