Meltdown

A Look at Why the Economy Tanked and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse

By: Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

The media tells us that "deregulation" and "unfettered free markets" have wrecked our economy and will continue to make things worse without a heavy dose of federal regulation. But the real blame lies elsewhere.

In Meltdown, best-selling author Thomas E. Woods, Jr., unearths the real causes behind the collapse of housing values and the stock market---and it turns out the culprits reside more in Washington than on Wall Street. And the trillions of dollars in federal bailouts? Our politicians' ham-handed attempts to fix the problems they themselves created will only make things much worse.

Woods, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and winner of the 2006 Templeton Enterprise Award, busts the media myths and government spin. He explains how government intervention in the economy---from the Democratic hobby horse called Fannie Mae to affirmative action programs like the Community Redevelopment Act---actually caused the housing bubble. Most important, Woods, author of the New York Times best seller The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, traces this most recent boom-and-bust---and all such booms and busts of the past century---back to one of the most revered government institutions of all: the Federal Reserve System, which allows busybody bureaucrats and ambitious politicians to pull the strings of our financial sector and manipulate the value of the very money we use.

Meltdown, which features a foreword by Congressman Ron Paul (R - Texas), also provides a timely history lesson to counter the current clamor for a new New Deal. The Great Depression, Woods demonstrates, was only as deep and as long as it was because of the government interventions by Herbert Hoover (no free-market capitalist, despite what your high-school history teacher may have taught you) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (no savior of the American economy, in spite of what the mainstream media says). If you want to understand what caused the fi...

©2009 Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (P)2009 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Provocative, well-written, and deserves to be read." ( Catholic Historical Review)
"Well written, well researched, and the thesis put forth is well argued." ( Journal of American History)

Maybe, Maybe Not

If unregulated capatilism works so well...well...it doesn't, that's the problem. Perhaps we should minimize government involvement, but government involvment to some extent is required. Just read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". And the current "Great Reccession" and the fall of several companies that were too big to fail was caused by unregulated credit default swaps, etc., and the imaginary financial markets that produced nothing and did nothing that have exsisted for the past 8 years. Anyone who denies this is a fool. Listen to this book, but know that it is crap.

Important thoughts

I agree with those others who were offended by the sarcasm, which is designed for the converted and less so for the open-minded. This is my only negative: I though it patronizing.

The ideas in the book are worth anyone's interest. Unfortunately, he American system of open bribery, where corporations blatantly pour money into government, is structured to favor reckless spending. This book does not examine closely why our system is is corrupt, nor should it, but the reader might be cautioned that half-steps could be more destructive than regulation.

Tucker Carlson needs to read this book.

Austrian Economics and how it relates to the US banking system anyone can understand. Even Tucker!

Will challenge what you think you know.

I started out with may pre-conceived notions about the meltdown in the housing market and who was responsible for it. i.e.greedy and unregulated bankers.

This book changed that view and puts the blame squarely on the politicians and regulators who created this mess. It would almost be laughable except that the ones responsible are still in charge and are now working on the "fix" for this calamity.

If you have lost your job and your home from the economic meltdown of this last decade, you owe it to yourself to listed to this audio book before you cast another vote.

Read End the Fed

If you want a more interesting and understandable approach to a similar topic read Ron Paul's End the Fed.

good stuff

this meltdown book by Tom woods I find is quite good stuff indeed I'd daresay say that it is fantastically good stuff – a good explanation of Austrian business cycle theory

Incredible

This book summarizes the works of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and F.A. Hayek in one succinct text. I am not an economist, but wanted more information about what the heck was going on at the end of last year. I read "Atlas Shrugged", then "Capitalism: an unknown ideal" by Ayn Rand. That took me to Mises' "Human Action" and then Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom". A must-read book by Henry Hazlitt was thrown in there called "Economics in One Lesson". Woods is brilliant...if you don't have the time or the will to read the above, you NEED to at least read this book. Thank God for the Austrian School of Economics!

A layman's opinion

I liked how this book revealed the feds involvement. I thought it was going to be more inflammatory regarding the party politics; putting responsibility on one and ignoring the others. Thankfully it was not.

Do not buy this to hear how the republicans got us in this mess and the democrats are the ones to save us. It will take a new way of thinking from everyone involved to get out of this and as partisan as politics are today I am not sure the ppl currently serving us are up for the job.

As far as the tone of the narrator goes: I would not have been able to make it through the text version of an economics book but I really liked how the narrator handled himself. After the book I went to thomasewoods.com and listened to the author himself, I believe the sarcasm was intended. Just a normal reading of the book would have not been able to get the same message across.

now i hope we can get "The United States Constitution" in an audio book

Great primer

Having zero background in economics, I found that the author explained very well how we got into this mess. The description of the Austrian Business Cycle theory was concise and easy to understand. Woods gives a road map for how to avoid boom-and-bust cycles and a great defense of (truly)free-enterprise. It's a shame the people in power don't understand sound economic principles.

a little dry but very worth the credit

this is great information; the conflicting news and meaningless predictions by "economists" are now exposed. its like someone turned the light on