The following comment might be viewed as simplistic but sometimes simplistic is what is needed to drill down the actual meaning behind an overly complex reality:
"We really need to be plain about this: Companies such as Washington Mutual, which announced a $1.6 billion write-down of home-lending-unit losses Monday, essentially took money placed in passbook savings accounts by hard-working, conservative customers -- many of them retirees -- and shoveled it to low-income, Fantasy Island condo flippers. Bankers paid 2% or less to customers they obviously considered suckers and lent it out at 6%-plus to customers they courted. " More not so simplistic but very illuminating comments are to be found in this article by the always bold Jon Markman.