Foreclosures by consumers heavily weighed on the economy, but what triggered the credit crunch was the failure (or near- failure) of the banks that issued (or acquired) the mortgages. In short, the root cause of the meltdown wasn't that customers borrowed too much; it's that banks lent too much.
This isn't to deny that many subprime loans were exploitative, and that customers often didn't understand repayment terms. Nor is it a bad idea to police banks, preventing them, for instance, from charging unreasonable fees.
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