Comments?
I have never been under any illusions that there were those in the industry who quite consciously committed wrong-doing with regard to these instruments.
I think there were a lot of guys who saw this new market as a money tree -- something to take advantage of, and to gamble on -- not as a sound investment, but merely as a way to ensure "growth" and therefore bonuses. These are guys that should have known better, and are nearly as culpable as the boys above.
I think others -- a yet larger proportion -- got into the trade more or less naively.... naive, in the sense that they never really looked too closely into the exact nature of the securities, but rather saw them as playing pieces in a larger financial game.
And finally, there is that much larger proportion -- fund managers, and such -- who got into them because they were advertised as "safe."
Not everybody is equally guilty.