I'd like to add that responsibility for banks providing loans backed by the taxpayer ultimately falls on voters. This is what fannie mae/sallie mae etc are all about. Disconnecting access to credit from the ability to repay it inevitably results in loans that will default.
Politicians sold people stuff like fannie mae and people voted for it by electing them. And I guess voting in favour of such things is inevitable when not all voters are taxpayers. An extreme solution might be limiting votes to people who are paying taxes. This seems logical but is obviously politically impossible.
"...I guess voting in favour of such things is inevitable when not all voters are taxpayers."
I get the premise of this logic, i.e., that poor people don't pay taxes and therefore don't care about spending taxpayer dollars. I've seen it presented hundreds of times. But I think, in all honesty, that such a theory is giving the poor too much credit. It assumes that the poor are making conscious decisions based on rational evaluations of their economic incentives. I'm not convinced they think that way. Furthermore, I'm not convinced that they're even informed enough to know what they're doing when they vote on such things.
Some of the blame lies on the voters for voting without understanding, sure. But the politicians -- many of whom are paid for by lobbies -- bear greater responsibility for selling bullshit to underinformed voters, and for coucing the bullshit in emotionally manipulative ways.
Politicians sold people stuff like fannie mae and people voted for it by electing them. And I guess voting in favour of such things is inevitable when not all voters are taxpayers. An extreme solution might be limiting votes to people who are paying taxes. This seems logical but is obviously politically impossible.