Some bombs take a while to explode. Unfortunately, that just makes the explosion bigger.

Lots of folks had the opportunity to head off the problem, some didn't see it, some ignored it, others tried to profit (politically) from it. I blame them all, and where SPECIFIC decisions were made by SPECIFIC people that either failed to prevent (or reduce) the problem, or made the problem worse I will point them out. I don't give a damn what political party they belonged to. Newt and the Republican Congress didn't try to prevent Clinton's regulatory changes, and joined him in trumpeting how great all these people buying houses they couldn't pay for was. However, they did not set up F&F for implosion like Frank did. The political decisions to hold Fed lending rates down for 20 years wasn't too smart either.

It was all smoke and mirrors done for political points. The regulatory bodies had to let the banks play fast and loose so that they could actually survive doing something as stupid as the making the loans that the government demanded them to make. It was completely unsustainable. When it began to unravel, F&F didn't have enough money to cover the guarantees because their reserve requirements (vs outstanding loans) was too low. As soon as F&F admitted that they could not cover the losses, all hell broke loose. F&F should have been the firewall, but Frank screwed up BIG (probably criminally but it will never be investigated). Without that change, the housing purchasing would have gradually slowed, and possibly the bubble deflated more naturally. It would still have popped at some point, but would (most likely) have been smaller (more like what happened in the 80s).

The political parties are too busy trying to hide their errors, and point the finger at the other party to actually worry about not allowing something like this to happen again. Thus it will; unless the entire country goes bankrupt first.