.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} They told us to buy, and we bought. Whether times were tough or terrorists attacked, the answer to our nation’s problems always seemed to be encoded on our credit cards.

Manufacturing got to be sort of an embarrassment, and maintaining the infrastructure was a dull concept, but they told us consumer spending was the key to our world-beating economy, so we kept pulling stuff off the shelves.

We always do what we’re told. Especially when it matches what we wanted to do anyway.

It really didn’t seem to be all that difficult. We can hold up our end of the bargain as long as it’s just clothes, toys and the occasional iPhone that we crave. It’s not hard to carry a credit card balance just one more month.

But then you need a house to hold it all.

For years, people in Central Iowa have been asking each other: “Who’s buying all of those big houses? How can these young couples afford it?” No doubt the questions were asked with even more amazement in Florida and Arizona.

But those people, young and not-so-young alike, thought: Why not? After all, everybody else is doing it, and everyone on TV and in the movies has a terrific place to live. What’s the point of waiting for tomorrow when you can buy today?

Unfortunately, the moneylenders agreed. If you’re in the business of making loans, everybody walking past your office looks like someone who could use some cash. And if you don’t deal with them, the lender down the street will. So they made it easier and easier to borrow, focusing on competition and ignoring common sense.

First came the questionable loans. Then things started to get a little rough. Reuters carried an article last spring about a Miami woman who was behind on her mortgage payments and was approached by “a door-to-door ‘mortgage lender’ who promised to help her. Nine months later, her $89,000 mortgage has ballooned into a $234,000 loan, her monthly payments have doubled, and she faces foreclosure on a house she no longer owns.”

That mortgage lender was definitely not a team player.

But the bigger question is, what about the people who are supposed to be team players? The ones who are supposed to believe that if we all follow the rules, we all do well?

Harry Dinham, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, said at a congressional hearing, “As the decision-maker, the role of the consumer is to acquire the financial acumen necessary and take advantage of the competitive marketplace, shop, compare, ask questions and expect answers.”

Well, yeah, that’s how it should work. But it sounds an awful lot like a pickpocket saying, “They should know better than to carry their money around like that.”

As long as it was a few dumb home buyers who were going through foreclosure and heading back to a modest apartment, nobody cared much. Then the home buyers got deeper into the lenders’ pockets, and the problem didn’t seem so minor anymore.

Now we’re watching a financial panic circle the world like a shark, day after day. Now money is getting tight for everybody because of that steady drip of bad decisions in the lending industry.

American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. has filed for bankruptcy. Countrywide Financial Corp. might be headed down the same track.

And they think we’re the ones who didn’t ask enough questions?