This is dumb. Its easy in hindsight to blame the bank, but the truth is that public pressure and overwhelmingly positive attitudes about the value of home ownership abounded for much of the past few decades - creating an environment that made it very easy for everyone involved to over-promise and under commit. A public fix is necessary because the problem is very large and threatens everyone; should private enterprise or homeowners be let off the hook? No, of course not. But the sad truth is that if we could have prevented all of this housing mess we would have, but we lacked the foresight to do so and we didn't. Now its time to pay for our mistakes.