The Deregulation Bogeyman
About this book
In 2009 I published Meltdown, which was essentially the first book on the financial crisis to be published by anyone. I wrote it because I could already see the conventional wisdom beginning to ossify: why, the economy blew up in 2008 because of capitalism run amok! This is as wrong as wrong can be, yet it has reached the status of something "everyone knows." The 2008 crisis has passed into history, but it remains important for us to study and understand. As F. A. Hayek observed, if we don't get history right, then we'll get the present dreadfully wrong.In Meltdown I placed a great deal of emphasis on the role of the Federal Reserve System in causing the housing bubble and the subsequent bust. This eBook, which is focused on the more specific question of whether "deregulation caused the crisis, spends less time on the Fed, so for that aspect of the question I refer the reader to Meltdown.Now on to the myth busting.