Actually, everyone knew when. Bush was leaving office, and on September 19, 2008, demanded entitlement for Bush’s going away present to his cronies. What wasn’t known, was the lengths the bankers would go to in order to satisfy their greed. We now know they want it all.

You raised two points that need reinforcing in my view:

1. “The banks never expected the loans would be paid back,” and
2. “which is why they issued them to ninjas: applicants with no income, no collateral, no job, and a bad credit history.”

There is nothing like enough noise being made of the fact that these fuckers knew exactly what they were doing all along. We see endless footage of bankers hanging their heads in shame over ‘mistakes’ they made and politicians sagely telling us about the ‘lessons they’ve learnt’. It’s all absolute bunkum. They all knew exactly what they were doing all the time, and what the consequences would be. The only thing they weren’t sure about was when… so the game was to fill your pockets as quickly as possible before the sky fell in.

The second point is about the ninjas. Most ninjas are not ninjas through choice. They are the products of the same gangster economic model that produced unregulated banking. As ordinary folk were having their jobs shipped to Asian and Latino sweatshops, or the lucky ones who kept jobs had their hours and wages cut, the markets kept raising the cost of their mortgages. So the toxic loans were being made more toxic because the ordinary people at the bottom of the ponzi scheme were being expected to pay increasing debts with decreasing wages.