I worked deep in the mortgage backed security industry for a decade before the financial crisis and for some years since. I know a lot about it, and some big events firsthand. I find that people are interested in my thoughts on the causes until they hear them: while there were some really bad actors at the margins, the bulk of the crisis was caused by many, many people making good-faith, rational decisions which in hindsight proved foolish.

Of course I could be wrong — consciously or unconsciously I could simply be voicing my own bias. But I think at some level people prefer a simple narrative with a hero and a villain regardless of whether the narrative is true.