The new rules aren't too strict - and we all know it. The lenders knows it - they are just concerned with losing business.

However, even with the old rules, I feel that the aspect of personal responsibility and judgement has been completely overlooked. You don't have to have a degree to do the basic calculations and estimate how your monthly payments may be affected by an increase of the interest rate. There are mortgage calculators online available for that (it only took a few seconds to find http://www.mortgageloan.com/calculator/ through Google).

Please, stricter rules AND enforcement of personal responsiblity this time around...