If I must argue something, I'd say the housing crisis example wasn't so simple as it was presented. Some people knew exactly what they were doing, albeit it turned out badly for them, but they had so little to lose they took the risk anyway and just bankrupted out. But I'm not at all interested in talking about this, my original question still stands.
Instead I've been assaulted and my eyes blackened all for what, because I asked a question that if answered may weaken the credibility of the op's original post?
Your question was not well asked. At all. It carried a ton of baggage with it, made several assumptions, and generalized a whole class of people in society and you seem to be extremely oblivious to it.
This isn't meant as an insult. I'm being harsh because this is a moment for you to learn. To get better. To take in the feedback instead of playing the victim card to protect your ego.
I hate extreme examples, but I'll use one here to make a simple point. How well do you think walking into a bar and asking the following would go over: "Hey fellas, how bad are Nazis really? And are Jewish people really that great anyway?"
And then when people give you their passionate thoughts, you just respond with "Woah woah woah, I'm just asking simple questions to expand my understanding".
That's similar to what's going on here.
A comment like "What are the poor legitimately at fault for then? I'm tired of this implication that the poor can never be at fault for anything, because they are so poor." not only doesn't do that, it's hard to read it any other way than as a battle stroke. And when you write "I asked a question that if answered may weaken the credibility of the op's original post", you seem to confirm that. If you're focused on undermining others' credibility, they'll inevitably focus on defending themselves rather than exchanging information.
The site guidelines address this situation: "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." If you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site more to heart, we'd appreciate it, and people would be more likely to respond to you with information rater than counterattack.