I don't have tremendously deep thoughts on it, but it's clear that the incentives were not aligned appropriately. The mortgage issuers had no incentive to do proper underwriting, the ratings agencies had no incentive to give proper ratings, and securities brokers had incentives to shovel shit onto their clients, and their clients didn't seem to know or care. Now that the crisis has hit, the servicers have an incentive to drag out any foreclosure process to get fees, and owners of the shitpile don't want to write down any loan balances because then we'll know how broke they are.
Whether all that is fixable I have no idea.
