MEGAN MCARDLE: Turns Out The Housing Crisis Wasn’t All About Subprime.

When prices had been in a long, gentle rise for decades, high down payments looked like expensive and unnecessary insurance against something that rarely happened. They looked like a barrier keeping historically disadvantaged groups, like minorities and immigrants, from accumulating wealth the way that prosperous native white families had. They looked like something that regulators and bankers had needed to require before they got so darn smart about managing credit risks, and credit markets.

Everyone, from buyers to regulators, had reams of data telling them this. Who are you going to believe: years and years of statistics, or some crabby dude muttering about the Great Depression? The Great Depression was so long ago that men wore hats and the Beatles were not even gleams in their fathers’ eyes.

The crabby dudes seem to be getting vindicated a lot, lately.