I believe that that was your experience, and I don't at all deny, nor support, those government programs. That said, I can tell you, from having run a hedge fund for twenty years, and seeing the money supply side of that boondoggle up close, that the amount of money flowing into those securities was going to lead to enormous mispricing anyway, and did, just like they did in previous crises where perverse government incentives were not as clear. The government policies had a marginal effect, but they were not the driver we all wish they were.
The major drivers of the actual crisis were people who didn't understand risk. Up and down the line. If you want to argue that the government being willing and able to bail out investors time and time again lowered the risk premium to a minuscule level, and that this was a huge driver of the mispricing, I will be right with you. That was undoubtedly the biggest .gov contributor to the fiasco.
Anyway, the overall point is that the real problems came after the mortgages and loans. That was the driver of the crisis, along with homeowners not understanding risk at all.
