The Housing Boom And Bust by Thomas Sowell

From The Week of November 08, 2009

This is a short but powerfully argued case from
Thomas Sowell, an American economist and member of Stanford's Hoover Institute, concerning the origins of the housing boom and bust, experienced in the United States during the 2000s. Mr. Sowell points out the extent to which government interference distorted the free market, how by
backing risky loans to its citizens by, the government was incentivizing risky behavior by the country's banks and its financial institutions. Though Mr. Sowell is often difficult to swallow -- I make him a rather poor man's Milton Friedman when it comes to his attempts to speak on matters outside economics --, this is a tight, coherent case against government regulation and government interference in systems that work far better without it. As such, it has value to anyone who wishes to learn a bit about the extent to which governments interfere with their economies and the likelihood of their policies causing that economy to, at some point, fail rather spectacularly. (4/5 Stars)