How did this economic mess occur?

I saw this article on the origins of the current mess. combined with an article that I blogged about earlier, it neatly sums up how political and economic power manipulated the markets to where they are today.

It's not high salaries for people doing the work. Heck, if we'd paid the CEO's involved the ridiculous bonuses but forced them to retire 10 years ago, this mess wouldn't have happened. Ultimately, people got rich promising the impossible- an upper middle class home for people, primarily U.S. residents, that couldn't afford them. 

It was like pretending a credit card was a salary.