Greed for Personal Gain Drove Financial Bubble

Jeff Madrick has a very helpful article on the financial crisis in the recent issue of the New York Review of Books. It explains many details of the crisis in a very understandable and accessible way. Bottom line:

This is, as many economists now concur, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Financial market participants created a financial bubble of tragic proportions in pursuit of personal gain. But the deeper cause was a determination among people with political and economic power to minimize the use of government to oversee the financial markets and to guard against natural excess. If solutions are to be found, the nation requires robust and pragmatic use of government, free of laissez-faire cant and undue influence from the vested interests that have irresponsibly controlled the economy for too long.