American homeowners whose mortgages are under water are speculators who have lost money on their investments. I am not saying that they should be ashamed. I am not saying that all of them consciously set out to gamble on higher house prices. However, by putting so little money down and taking on debt that they could not afford, they were putting themselves in a position where their ability to remain in their homes depended entirely on the opportunity to refinance, which in turn required continued appreciation of house prices. Whether they meant to or not, they made highly leveraged bets. It is not clear why the rest of us should reward them with new speculative opportunities.

But if we just assume that businesses are greedy and care only about making money — which, I think, the consumer-advocate types would normally grant us — then why would they spend money on credit reports that have no value? Do “consumer advocates” really believe that they not only know what’s best for you and me, but also know what’s best for businesses’ bottom lines? Finally, let’s not forget the people with good credit and what a great service credit reports perform for them. A clean credit report is something that lets you carry your good reputation with you wherever you go. Because of this market innovation, it doesn’t matter if you move to a new town where you don’t know the people at the bank or at your prospective employer’s office. They can check your report and see that, to that extent, you seem to be dependable. It would be a shame if misguided activists and pandering politicians took some of this benefit away.

most people, when they are faced with a phenomenon that’s too complicated for them to understand, has a profound impact on their lives, yet is something they have little control over, they resort to emotionally comfortable rhetoric that serves to reinforce their existing biases. They face no incentives to understand - whether they are right or wrong doesn’t mater. So they will simply blame whatever aspects of reality that they already dislike. This could be the state, big corporations, Republicans, Democrats, Congress, dumb people, white people, black people, foreigners, atheists, immigrants, the neighborhood bully, fathers, rappers, video games, movies, pornography, whatever. The causal complexity of society-wide problems is such that you can plausibly blame anybody for them.