Are you confused about mortgages? Good. At least you know you are confused. The global economic system has been collapsed by people who were confused about mortgages and didn’t know it. Whose fault was it? It was the fault of the sub-prime home buyer. It was the fault of the sub-prime mortgage broker. It was the fault of lazy financial advisors who put their client’s money in asset backed paper that turned out to be worth whatever recycled paper goes for and no more. But mostly it was the fault of the private, for-profit company that manages our money supply – the Federal Reserve Bank.

It was the Federal Reserve Bank, and only the Federal Reserve, that was responsible for increasing the ratio between how much money a bank had on deposit and how much it could lend to 30-1. Did you see Jon Stewart hammer Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s Mad Money, on who did this? Well, the answer is, the Federal Reserve Bank did it. Congress must replace the FRB.

Mortgage brokers concocted obtuse mortgage contracts and then began shilling subprime loans to unqualified buyers. With interest rates at historic lows (until now, and God help us), mortgages were made to people that mortgage brokers knew could not afford the payments if interest rates were to return to their historic averages.

These shaky mortgages were then bundled and sold to financial firms as ‘asset backed paper,’ the now infamous ‘toxic assets’ we, the taxpayer, are buying from the banks. Question: What is another word for a toxic asset? Answer: A liability. The American government is using taxpayer money to buy liabilities.

What will happen going forward? People who can’t afford things will not buy them. And people who can afford something will save to buy it instead of putting it on the credit card. I know that’s harsh, but it is the truth. Pity them, yes. Bail them out? Not a chance.