I wonder if anyone from these rating companies ever bothered to talk to the people actually buying these mortgages - i.e. the people the whole crumbly edifice was based upon. Or indeed how they were being sold.

I would have expected someone to do some due diligence and find out what all of this business was actually based on.

Some guys from Lehman Brothers did some actual research (i.e. they went and talked to the sales guys selling these mortgages) and concluded that it was all going to end in tears. At according to:

http://www.amazon.com/Colossal-Failure-Common-Sense-Collapse...