People blame Wall Street because they began trading CDO's that they should have realized (and certainly did realize) were highly risky and they leveraged themselves to the hilt on an extremely risky asset - that ruined our economy.

The commercial banks on the other hand who began giving out inflated mortgages, they certainly share blame too - drug dealers and don't think for a second they weren't telling consumers making $50K a year that they could afford a $500K place. Consumers are dumb and get preyed on regularly.