Who took advantage of who with sub-prime loans?

The borrower may argue that he didn’t understand what was going on and the loan officer pushed him into a bad loan.

The loan officer, however, may argue that the borrower lied on his applications so, of course, the loan was not appropriate for him.

I’ve seen different numbers. This blurb says, “About 50 percent of the subprime mortgages were ‘stated income loans,’ with no verification of borrowers’ incomes.”

But then again, the loan officer probably accepted the borrower’s obviously bogus stated income to get the deal done.

So was it the loan officers and borrowers working together to take advantage of the lenders?