Yes, as well as the predatory lenders, targeted marketers and a host of others working to dumb down the consumer. Lack of critical reasoning increases impulsive and conspicuous consumption, it is not a coincidence that critical reasoning and the intellectual lazy have increased along with consumption. To believe that culture and propaganda does not have the ability to influence an individuals decision making is to ignore the body of evidence that fascism (and later the soviets) created for us and used with deadly precision.

And then you write several paragraphs trying to shift blame.

I hold all parties equally accountable, that was clear in my writing.

"us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still others had different messages.

Real estate agents where free to perpetuate the myth with no repercussions, no one has went to jail over predatory loans, when direct corruption on their part, has been highlighted by several whistle-blowers. The financial industry was bailed out. To me that is pretty indicative of that we as a society are ok with people not critically thinking.

Further, many people hold out some of those individuals to be professionals, that are being paid to do the thinking and analysis for them. When I go to my CPA, I expect him to be a tax professional, I do not educate myself in tax law because, I pay the CPA to do so. To educate myself in it would be redundant and a waste of my time and money.

It would also kill human progress to require everyone to educate themselves on every aspect of their life to ensure they don't get screwed. We don't expect people to know mechanics and when a mechanic recommends more work than is necessary we generally consider it fraud. Again the person that did not educate themselves is to blame for not educating themselves or at the least seeking a second opinion, but it does not absolve the mechanic of his fraud.

What you suggest is untenable as a society, we have to rely on professionals to make decisions for us, as a society becomes more complex we have to delegate more. To not do so would stagnate us as a civilization. We should expect professional to act professional, and hold them as an accountable party when they do not.

In this specific example we should expect, lenders to help children understand the conditions of the loan and the full projected debt and payment at the end of the loans. So a student can see what their debt and payment projections will look like at the end of their education.

We should expect the schools to have clear, data on what their graduated of specific disciplines make, so that a student can compare that to the debt burden that they will incur.

Finally, we should expect sales and marketing to paint a true picture of the prospects for employment and education. Until we do, we as a society share the blame.

We can get into the semantics of who "we" are, but that is playing the blame game, the reality is, "we" as a society should not allow predatory practices in any market where large debt decision will be made. Until we do, we share some of the culpability of the indebted.

> Real estate agents where free to perpetuate the myth with no repercussions,

So? Folks say lots of things. If I tell someone that they don't look fat, am I responsible if they actually do?

Folks who believe everything are fools. Society needs fewer fools, so making fools take a huge hit for being foolish is a good thing for society.

> The financial industry was bailed out. To me that is pretty indicative of that we as a society are ok with people not critically thinking.

Not at all. We bailed out the financial industry because we like having a functioning financial industry. Moreover, said bailout was profitable. (Then there are the folks who argue that the bailout was unnecessary.)

> Further, many people hold out some of those individuals to be professionals

So if I hold out grocery clerk to be an expert on nutrition, I have a legit beef?

"I want {someone} to be liable for their advice" is no reason to hold said someone liable for their advice. You want liability, contract for it. Note that a contract requires the consent of the other party, so you're going to pay for said assumption of risk.

> In this specific example we should expect, lenders to help children understand the conditions of the loan

They're not children. They're college students. We let them vote. We let many of them buy alcohol.

If they are unable to understand that words have meaning and that it's a good idea to know said meaning, they shouldn't be in college.

Not at all. We bailed out the financial industry because we like having a functioning financial industry. Moreover, said bailout was profitable. (Then there are the folks who argue that the bailout was unnecessary.)

I am interested to hear how you reconcile those two points of views, society needs fewer "fools", but yet the financial collapse is a case study in foolish exuberance. Do you draw a distinction between the individual and the institution or is foolishness excusable when we may have to take a hit for it. Even if we did not participate.

In my view, the repercussions of the foolish actions on the part of the financial industry where not allowed to happen, even if it would have been painful for us. One could argue that we need to be empathetic and learn from their mistakes and that we needed to bail them out for the greater good.

If that is the case, why does it differ for the individual "fool"? because we don't have to share in repercussion so we can therefore be selectively empathetic. You see from my vantage point, the "fools" that did not do their homework on wall street are no different than the "fool" that did not do his homework before getting into student loan debt or mortgage debt. You can weigh in on either side of the morality issue that we need to help them or not help them, but they both acted foolishly and other fools in the system helped perpetuate their foolishness, we have a systemic issue of anti-intellectualism and intellectual laziness. Whether you are for or against helping or are in favor of selectively helping the ones that will cause us pain for their foolishness, if we don't act, the fact remains that both sides are culpable. I know that you don't see that vantage point which is fine, but I am genuinely interested in understanding how you unify the two positions for different classes of fools, which from my vantage point looks like an argument for situational ethics. Which is what many in the financial industry used to justify their behavior.

Actually, it wasn't. However, even if it was, there are benefits to a functioning financial system. There's no benefit to more fools.

> In my view, the repercussions of the foolish actions on the part of the financial industry where not allowed to happen, even if it would have been painful for us

That's a reasonable view, one that I happen to share. (However, you're ignoring the role of govt in this whole thing. I think that folks who want a foolish govt should take a hit.) However, as I've pointed out, there's a reasonable counter argument.

What is the benefit to protecting fools?

> Which is what many in the financial industry used to justify their behavior.

I think that you're making that up. How about a checkable cite to someone in the financial industry actually making that argument? (Someone else saying it about them is not evidence.)