IT has become fashionable of late to say that America’s subprime borrowers themselves deserve a good part of the blame for the current mortgage mess. They were either greedy (looking for easy money in a bubbly real estate market) or irresponsible (assuming a debt whose terms they did not understand).
They should be punished for their behavior, the argument goes — not rewarded with loan workouts.
. . .
Should greedy subprime borrowers take responsibility or should greedy subprime lenders get tagged? Nothing is ever black and white, of course. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of cases in which both borrower and lender are at fault, and others in which just one of the parties may bear greater blame.
» Blame the Borrowers? Not So Fast – The New York Times, 25th November 2007.