We have a problem because
we allow this to happen. The system doesn't exist as an independent entity. The system, however constituted, is a reflection upon those upon whom it operates. We choose what we allow to fly, and our generations are stuck with the responsibility, however you slice it.
For instance, people could look at a 50yr/0% loan and say, "There's no way I am going to wager on something for 50 years, that is crazy, also 0% APR means a tricky, tricky bank". Instead, we eat that kind of stuff up, because all we think about is getting what we want and getting it now. People are too excited to think ahead.
Same goes for government. You can wax on about corruption in politics all the day long, but as long as you're propping up the same institutions by electing the same incumbents or their alter-egos in the two main parties or patronizing major media corporations, you're a part of the cause. If the people were unwilling to accept corruption, there wouldn't be any.
The solution is to change the system by the individual action and perspective that will diminish the entrenched badness, and to spread these philosophies among friends. Alteration by artifice as government intervention is not effective -- whatever laws you pass, the same practices will resurface in new robes because the population can still be exploited. The population will remain exploitable until they change their conceptions and actions, no matter what you do with the government.
The reaction to the housing crisis is a dog and pony show meant to appease populist fervor without causing significant disruption in "business as usual" for either the consumer or its providers.
It has done no good, and it could not have done any good. We need an ideological shift, not band-aids, talking points, or press releases.