I was doing some research for the day job and came across this article about a panel discussion on the future of GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).  There are several good quotes contained within, but these two really caught my eye: 

But according to White and Booher, it was a broader cultural issue, an unbalanced federal housing policy that stressed homeownership at the expense of rational underwriting. “I believe that the deception of our culture, that money grows on trees, that there can be action and no reaction, is so prevalent that we live in a fantasy world,” White said. “And members of Congress were the ultimate actors there.”

That unbalanced housing policy was prevalent on the operations side as well. "The problem really starts with a culture that’s increasingly looking for something for nothing,” Durkin of Wood Partners explained. “That permeates our housing policy.”

I really do hope my children's generation ends up being smarter than mine or my parents'.