This Crisis & Sowell Clarity

TOM SOWELL:

"From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us.

What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the market's 'greed.' That makes great moral melodrama, but it turns the facts upside down.

It was precisely government intervention which turned a thriving industry into a basket case.

An economist specializing in financial markets gave a glimpse of the history of housing markets when he said: 'Lending money to American homebuyers had been one of the least risky and most profitable businesses a bank could engage in for nearly a century.'

That was what the market was like before the government intervened. Like many government interventions, it began small and later grew."

If you want insight, then you really should read the whole thing.

On the other hand, if you choose either rational ignorance or irrationality, then you want to stay far, far away from Tom Sowell.