FWIW (off-topic I know), I don't think the big businesses in Wall Street made bad decisions, at least not business-wise (which is all they care about). They were just arrogant and greedy, and the government bailouts in the end enabled them to get away with it (whilst "stabilizing" the economy - not necessarily a bad thing, but obviously a short-term gain only). Same with real estate and construction. I do agree Wall Street regulators didn't do their job though, and it was crazily easy to obtain housing credit before the crash.