Glass Houses

The SEC-inspired rampage against Goldman Sachs is mob mentality at its scariest. When a mob goes wild, not only does it often wield injustice against the innocent, it also becomes completely blind to its own failings.

How many American consumers have asked themselves personally, in the midst of their feeding frenzy on the blood of the multinationals like Goldman and A.I.G., whether they should have been buying more house than they knew they could afford? A long era of disgustingly easy credit (it was the Age of the Credit Card Offers), low interest rates, and the asinine and irresponsible government policies (including subsidies) to push home ownership on absolutely everyone gave millions of consumers that buzz, that pleasurable anticipation of gluttony sated.

Every one of you who put little to no money down for a first-time -- or a bigger and flashier -- house, regardless of how meager your actual income may have been, share the blame for the collapse of the real estate market and, by extension, the world economy. You took irresponsible advantage of home value bubbles from 1998 to 2006 by borrowing against the equity you had for more and more credit. And for what? For Land Rovers, for swimming pools, for Carnival cruises, for home entertainment centers with 60-inch televisions . . . for brighter, flashier toys than your neighbors had. When you were mortgaged or leveraged to the hilt and the value of your McMansions plummeted, you lost your toys and your homes and even your jobs (because your employers don't operate in a vacuum).

Did you look yourselves in the mirror and say, "I shouldn't have bought all that" or "I shouldn't have borrowed so heavily" or "I shouldn't have eaten every last bit of equity I spent years acquiring"? Nope, you just blamed the Other Guy. And you're blaming him still.