“I had all these stacks of papers at the closing,” she told me, “and they were just passing papers back and forth to me, back and forth, telling me to sign. And I kept saying, ‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute.’ ”

She was assured that nothing untoward was going on.

Ms. Richardson did not have a fixed-rate mortgage. Her monthly payment rose, and rose again, eventually passing $800, which she could not pay. There was also a balloon payment provision hidden in the welter of documents, along with other obligations that would not emerge until Ms. Richardson was waist-high in economic quicksand.

Ms. McNulty, the lawyer, is trying to forestall the foreclosure, while at the same time trying to locate those who, in her view, defrauded her client. Her attempt to hold anyone accountable has been maddeningly difficult. As she explained, the original deal “was securitized into one of these now infamous trusts.”

The distress calls from despondent men and women who believed until very recently that they were living the American dream are coming from all over the country. Tova Navarra of Atlantic Highlands, N.J., was waylaid by illness. “I will end up bankrupt, disabled and bereft of a career,” she told me. “I’m wondering if this will become a bankrupt society.”

After a series of medical setbacks forced her to stop working, Ms. Navarra, 60, watched her standard of living deteriorate step by agonizing step to the point where she was forced to leave her condominium and move into a senior citizens’ residence that she currently cannot afford. The condo is in foreclosure, and she is staring at a future with no upside.

“The first time you realize that you can’t pay the mortgage  that’s the beginning of a very keen panic,” said Ms. Navarra. “The medical bills pile up and that’s when people start deliberately skipping doses to try to make the medicine stretch out a little more.

“You find yourself gradually climbing down the economic ladder, and you start thinking, ‘How am I going to survive, and where am I going to go?’ I said to myself, ‘Oh, my God. I’m going to end up sleeping in my car.’ ”

Real people. Real suffering. We may be fascinated by Wall Street, and bogus yarns like Joe the Plumber’s. But the real story in this country right now is the increasingly dire plight of those heading toward the bottom of that ladder that Ms. Navarra was talking about.