Liveblogging Meltdown Ch.1 The Elephant in the Room

When I went to Florida on Spring Break this year I tried to buy Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, By Tom Woods (my favorite author by the way) for a few relatives at three different book stores, well all of them were sold out and the last even mentioned the publisher is completely sold out.

So these posts (one for each chapter) will be mainly for those relatives for whom I could not buy the book, remember these will in no way live up to the book, not even close, so make sure you buy a copy as soon as it comes back out.

Chapter 1 - The Elephant in the Living Room

The stock market has been falling since last fall, and, predictably, just about everyone is blaming it on too much free markets and not enough regulation.

Woods shows that no one even mentions the Fed or the one percent interest rates, that is except for Jim Rogers, James Grant, Peter Schiff and the members of the Austrian School of Economics - those who predicted the crisis that is.

The government's cure for the crisis? More of the same of course, bigger government and more regulation masquerading first a s republican and then as ' hope and change.'

In the book Woods promises to show how the Fed screwed up the economy by manipulating interest rates and how the only school that predicted the crisis, the Austrian School, is also the only one which has a viable solution.