I've been asked on 30 radio shows, "How did this subprime fiasco come about? How did we get here?" The collective analysis is similar to a surly teenager's shrug and mumble. In other words, no one wants to pin the blame–or do the critical thinking required to unsnarl the complexities.

Is there no clear villain? From subprime instigator Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to the barely-licensed new real estate associate trying to pocket a chunk of out-of-control price run-ups, it seems everyone was complicitous in putting into mortgages people who had no business buying a house!

But for a technical path, a list of the specific industrial machinations that went boom, consider Steve Levine's analysis on OneCitizenSpeaking.com:

Simply put, the financial engineers in Wall Street firms packaged both mortgage and corporate debt into separate pools, added a hedging strategy which was supposed to mitigate any undue risk, submitted the derivatives package to the ratings agencies who rated the entire package as being "investment grade," which in turn allowed the Wall Street boys and girls to sell their packages to investors such as hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds and other financial institutions and allowing them to pocket their multi-million bonuses in real dollars. Not promised dollars based on the performance of their products, but real commission dollars based on what others paid for these toxic packages.

Investors clamored for more real-estate-backed loans and lenders obliged by loosening restrictions on credit worthiness. Starry-eyed Realtors promised homeless people they could get them into a nice place in the suburbs…not! While it's true young people and marginally credit-worthy buyers comprised part of the market, half of the frenzy was investor-fed. Home prices exceeded home values, reminiscent of the dot-com bubble of the late 90's. (“If the house next door wen up $50,000 in three months, you'd better buy it so you can make $100,000 in six months!”)

What goes up does not continue going up forever. It comes down or is replaced or implodes or…(remember basic chaos theory). This is not an orderly world. But Stephen Levine is one citizen making some sense out of it.