To the media pundits and government officials, this is a market failing that requires the government to take trillions of dollars from you and run the money presses fulltime. Otherwise we are doomed.
But there another way to look at the collapse of 2008: the whole thing, including the bubble that preceeded it, is the fault of the government and the Fed. All attempts to "fix" the problem are like forcing the patient to swallow more of the poison from which he suffers.
Mises.org has been making this argument, and warn of the coming crash years ago. But where can you find the argument explained for the average person in a convenient package, without technical jargon and with logic and facts?
Enter Tom Woods with his blockbuster book Meltdown. It's all here, all the information you need to understand what is happening and what to do about it. It is billed as a free-market response to the crisis but it is more precisely an Austrian School response.
He covers the problem of housing subsidies, of low interest rate loans, of the absurdities of the boom times, and how it was inevitable that they would come to an end. He puts the fault right where it belongs: with the government and the Central Bank.
He further blasts the political establishment for taking exactly the wrong path in response. Interest rates should be raised, not lowered. Government spending should be raised, not lowered. Government spending should be cut, not increased. On the current path, the bozoz in Washington are going to wreck whatever hope for recovery there is.
Here is the video link re Meltdwn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=541bajR4k8g&feature=plcp&context=C3bfaee7UDOEgsToPDskJvfAVkjQTUvIUY5-h77deV
