How we got into this mess
Buried in comments at KnoxViews is this, the most clearly written explanation of the current financial crisis that I have seen anywhere. The author explains in layman's terms how deregulation of the banks and of certain types of securities have caused a looming financial catastrophe. What began as a few bad mortgages has since snowballed into a potential disaster that threatens the entire world economy, and in only a few paragraphs, the author explains it all in a way that non-economists and non-financiers can grasp.
Read it carefully, and read it in horror, because it explains in black and white why, one way or another, Phil Gramm's blindingly immoral pursuit of deregulation will continue to affect the rest of us for generations to come.