Here’s an easy question. Imagine you’re walking down the street and you come to a busy corner. You look over and see a car run through a solid red light into the intersection. What do you think will happen?

Easy answer, right?

There’s going to be an accident. Cars or property will be damaged and, possibly, people will be hurt. It doesn’t require super-genius intellect or an advanced degree in traffic management to predict the future of this situation.

And it also shouldn’t have required a doctorate in economics to predict the current mortgage crisis. Basically, it was bound to happen.

Here’s a quote by Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Chairman Ben Bernanke that appeared in a recent Washington Post news story:

“… Far too much of the lending in recent years was neither responsible nor prudent. The terms of some subprime mortgages permitted homebuyers and investors to purchase properties beyond their means, often with little or no equity. In addition, abusive, unfair, or deceptive lending practices led some borrowers into mortgages that they would not have chosen knowingly.”

It’s heartening that Mr. Bernanke can sum up the root of the problem so succinctly. It would have been more encouraging if someone could have predicted the crisis before it began.

In simple terms, this is what got us into this mess.

The development of subprime mortgages brought a whole new group of homebuyers into the market. These were people who had substandard or limited credit history and couldn’t qualify for a conventional mortgage.

Ah, but suddenly a slice of the great American dream was within their grasp. Interest rates were low. Monthly payments were affordable. Small down payments and little equity were required.

As the number of qualified buyers increased, housing prices spiked. The price of a modest home rose by tens of thousands of dollars in a short time.

But you could afford to buy an expensive house, especially when a lender was seducing you with modest monthly payments and promises like “oh, interest rates might rise a point or two, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

Of course, interest rates did rise and buyers’ payments went through their newly purchased roofs. Instead of paying a few hundred dollars in house payments, middle-income buyers were paying a couple of thousand.

Some could keep up with the payments. That is, until the furnace had to be replaced or the roof needed new shingles.

Mr. Bernanke gives some stark statistics:

At the end of last year, more than one in five of the roughly 3.6 million outstanding subprime adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) were seriously delinquent, meaning they were either in foreclosure or ninety days or more past due. That rate is about four times higher than it was in mid-2005.

Lenders initiated roughly 1½ million foreclosures last year, up from an average of 950,000 in the preceding two years. More than one-half of the foreclosure starts in 2007 were on subprime mortgages.

Behind these disturbing statistics are families facing personal and financial hardship and neighborhoods that may be destabilized by clusters of foreclosures.

Of course, statistics don’t tell the human angle of the story, such as families where both parents are forced to get second jobs just to make a house payment. Or families who have fallen so far behind in their mortgage payments that they have no hope of ever catching up. The stress and strain of financial difficulties often leads to divorce and can lead to depression and even suicide.

And, as if that isn’t a bad enough picture, factor in that gas is now more than $3 a gallon, inflation is rising and the economy recently lost about 60,000 jobs.

Given these conditions, the $600 that taxpayers will receive this summer as part of the government’s economic stimulus plan seems a little weak, doesn’t it?

Even with lower interest rates, it will take some time to sort this mess out. Too many families are too far behind on their house payments and eventually will lose their homes.

But maybe the next time corporations cook up a bright idea to lend huge amounts of money to people with marginal credit and modest means, maybe someone with a Ph.D. can say, “Gee, are you sure that’s a smart thing to do?”

Or maybe we can save ourselves by realizing that the home ownership slice of the American dream is expensive.

And, if someone offers you a deal that’s too good to be true, it probably is.

City Editor Steve Booher’s column runs on Mondays.