More than greed and incompetence ...

WILLIAM K. Black teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He was the senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the 1980s savings and loan crisis. He is experienced enough to suspect that "that the tool at the very center of mortgage collapse, creating triple-A rated bonds out of "liars' loans" — loans issued without verifying income, assets or employment — was a fraud, and the banks knew it." He explains to Bill Moyers' Journal.