Newsflash: It Was Not Just "Sub-Prime"

It never was, but it was easy for pundits, and more convenient for politicians, to say it was.

Saying it's just the "sub-prime" borrowers that are defaulting allows Left-wingers to manufacture a victim in this mess, and it enables Right-wingers to blame it on the less-able or more lazy among us.

But get this: one in seven mortgages over $1mm is "seriously delinquent", while only one in 12 mortgages below $1mm fit that bill.

You read that right. The more affluent borrowers are almost twice as likely to be up a creek on their mortgages than everyone else.

From a "what the heck were the banks thinking" standpoint, Sub-Prime is a much larger share of this mess, and so that issue is not to be ignored. But what does it say about the direction and mindset of our country when the more successful among us are more likely than the masses to do the wrong thing with their financial lives?