It remains to be seen. The largest ones (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG) are currently being investigated for fraud, in what could turn out to be the biggest financial perpetration in history. We'll just have to wait and see if it really was stupidity, or an outright crime.

It's not stupidity's fault. It's corporate greed. A lot like a person gets addicted to gambling, companies and individuals are obsessed with profits. In a bid to make money they take risks. They don't always come out a winner. I've stated that the party most at fault is the consumer who signs the paperwork. Something I see as another player is a mrtgage company that should have known better than to loan money on over-inflated housing and offering 100% financing that the consumer can back out of at little loss. What will they do to prevent it from happening again? Who knows. I have little faith that it will be effective. There will be loopholes found in anything and in another 30 or 40 years we will be in the same boat. We as consumers need to protect ourselves by not being greedy and stretching our necks out too far. Protect yourself instead of opening yourself to the risk. Don't be so eager to bind yourself to unreasonable contracts. Owning your own home is great but not if there is significant risk of having it taken away for lack of funds to pay the mortgage. Consumer responsibility is the key to the solution but I don't think we are disciplined enough to avoid continuous occurences of the same thing. We are a very greedy people. Learn to live with less and you will probably be happier and safer too.

Nothing, as long as the government keeps bailing them out they do not have to worry about any type of prevention.

It's a combination of stupidity and greed and neither can be fixed in an organization until they are fixed in the people.

Nothing from what I have seen or heard.

Before we bail them out( and it is going to be a fight, thank goodness) we need to get some rules and regulations set in stone, with oversight locked in place, and accountability set up. Also, the taxpayer needs to own a part of what he is bailing out..no free lunch here. If all of that gets ironed out, and we get an administration that doesn't lie, subvert rules and regulations and cares about "we the people", we'll have some big sticks to control these greedy people. :)

Vote for Barack Obama! or as I'm not American convince others to vote for him:-)

Thats like jumping from the frying pan to the fire.

One big assumption here is that this is the fault of the financial institutions. If hundreds of thousands of people had not gotten into homes they couldn't afford the financial institutions wouldn't be in this situation. Also, if the financial institutions weren't forced to give mortgages to low income and poor credit risk borrowers, then we'd be OK. Let's blame the right people here. Since most Americans don't understand basic economics and household finances, then we're facing this situation.