The mortgage and securitisation markets in the UK and US are very different.... for one the UK banks were made to hold on to a significant amount of the first loss tranch of their securitised mortgage books.... typically 1-2% of the loan balances... indeed most of the actually economic risk (NRK's Whinestone transaction was created to sell some of this down risk.... the only vehicle in the UK to do this I believe).. in the US this was not the case... this is a big difference in terms of the business you were prepared to write.
You are not the only one that had a front row seat to this s**tshow and as for.. "traders & their bosses fixate entirely and solely on this year's bonus I dont think you can really appreciate that the perverse incentive structure undermined the entire financial industry by encouraging short term gambling instead of well thought out investment"... that says more about your organisation than anything else... the vast majority of MBS/ABS are not owned by trading desks believe it or not but by investment funds with a longer term objective and different incentive structures.
Anyway enough willy waving and throwing around abbreviations. The net result is the same... people have borrowed too much... how it is packaged/carved up on bank balance sheets as loans, ABS/MBS, CDOs etc etc it is all debt at the end of the day and if someone (i.e. Mr consumer) does not repay it it results in a loss.... all roads lead to a greedy consumer who wanted it all and couldn't pay the bill for the party.