How big of a role did just plain stupid people play in the housing crash and mortgage meltdown?

When you look at the housing crash and mortgage meltdown (and America in general) you see stupid people everywhere:

- Stupid people at the ratings agencies giving AAA ratings to worthless crap

- Stupid mortgage brokers committing rampant fraud, thinking they wouldn't get caught

- Stupid appraisers wildly overstating the value of homes

- Stupid realtors telling their suckers there were 21 Reasons to Buy, when instead there were 21 Reasons to Sell and Rent

-Stupid people at the Fed not seeing the housing bubble, not raising rates faster, and not regulating the out of control lenders that they were supposed to be regulating

- Stupid people in the White House telling people it was a great time to buy at the peak

- Stupid people in the MSM not doing their jobs, and interviewing stupid realtors as "experts"

- Stupid people by the millions buying second homes as investments, spending five times their incomes on a home, or believing what MTV, HGTV and the Learning Channel were selling them

- Stupid people who stood in lines to "buy" a house that cost three times more than renting the same house would have cost, while using stupid toxic loans that they knew would explode

I think I'm seeing even more stupid people than corrupt ones. Stupid people who blew up the United States real estate and financial markets, stupid people that didn't understand that we were in a classic financial mania, and stupid people who are now unemployed and asking for government handouts by the millions.

I think it's time for the stupid people to learn a valuable (albeit tough) lesson. And hopefully that'll make them a bit smarter.