I wasn't on this board at the time.
The tax cuts weren't the tea leaves for me. For me it was an article regarding the sub-prime mortgages, and then also watching what other people were doing. The article stated that around 45% of the new mortgages around the DC area, San Diego, and some other major areas were the sub-prime mortgages.
With all of the McMansions popping up all over, it was obvious that people were buying way out of their price range and wouldn't be able to pay when the balloon payments came due. With the market saturated with 45% of those types, it was clear there were going to be MAJOR defaults and it was going to hit the banks hard as well as everybody else.
The other thing happening with all of that is that housing prices were skyrocketing, so people were taking out home equity loans to buy boats and big SUVs and all kinds of things. They were banking on the equity in an asset HAD to plunge substantially when all the defaults started hitting, so lots were upside down.
It was a mess, and nobody was doing anything about it ... too busy making up false evidence to go to war with a country on false pretenses.