Everyone has an opinion about the mortgage meltdown in America.

The punching bags are usually Greenspan, Bernanke, Bush or any other numbskull whose butt is parked in a seat of power.

But the one culprit that has gone unnoticed so far is the advertising machine on Madison Avenue.

Now, an article in today’s New York Times reveals the real candy man of the mortgage industry. Titled “The Debt Trap,” reporter Louise Story writes about how the Madison Avenue advertising machine was among the most culpable forces in bringing our economy to its knees.

Ms. Story cites some of the great, treacherous ad campaigns that turned the American dream into the American nightmare — courtesy of Madison Avenue.

– “Live Richly.” That catchy slogan, dreamed up by the Fallon Worldwide advertising agency, was pitched in 1999 to executives at Citicorp who were looking for a way to lure Americans to financial products like home equity loans. As one of the ads proclaimed: “There’s got to be at least $25,000 hidden in your house. We can help you find it.”

– A 2003 ad from Citigroup said a home could be “the ticket” to whatever “your heart desires.” It continued: “You’ve put a lot of work into your home. Isn’t it time for your home to return the favor?”

– One ad in 2006 from PNC Bank pictured a wheelbarrow and the line, the “easiest way to haul money out of your house.”

– In 2004, Banco Popular said in its “Make Dreams Happen” ads: “Need Cash? Use Your Home.”

– “Seize your someday,” a Wells Fargo ad advised in 2007.

– An ad from CIT Financial said, “You don’t have to sell your home to get $10,000, $30,000 or even more in cash. You don’t even have to walk out the door.”

As Ms. Story observes: “None of this would have been possible without a conscious effort by lenders, who have spent billions of dollars in advertising to change the language of home loans and with it Americans’ attitudes toward debt.”

Ms. Story goes to quote Pei-Yuan Chia, a former vice chairman at Citicorp who oversaw the bank’s consumer business in the 1980s and 1990s. “Calling it a ‘second mortgage,’ that’s like hocking your house. But call it ‘equity access,’ and it sounds more innocent.”

Ms. Story closes out her article with an observation by Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School who has studied consumer debt and bankruptcy, said that financial companies used advertising to foster the idea that it is good, even smart, to borrow money.

“That ‘unused home equity in your house? Put it to work for you.’ ” Professor Warren said, mimicking the ads. “Doesn’t that sound financially sophisticated?” Not to Professor Warren. “Put it to work,” she said, is just a euphemism for borrowing.

For those of us who do watch TV, you can’t help but be stunned at the number of pharmaceutical ads that have become the vogue. They all end with a small-print chatter of side-effects that consume about 30% of the total run time.

In retrospect, I guess it’s too bad that the FDA isn’t overseeing our financial system. At least the ads for second (and third) mortgages would’ve alerted us to the side effects of financial gluttony.