The Housing Boom and Bust »

Thomas Sowell has taught economics at Cornell, UCLA, Amherst and other academic institutions, and his Basic Economics has been translated into six languages. He is currently a scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has published in both academic journals in such popular media as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine and Fortune, and writes a syndicated column that appears in newspapers across the country.

The financial tsunami has been followed by a political flood of rhetoric, accompanied by finger-pointing in all directions. Who was really responsible? What set this off?

Preface v

1 The Economics of the Housing Boom 1

2 The Politics of the Housing Boom 30

3 The Housing Bust 57

4 Housing Mystiques and Housing Mistakes 90

5 The Past and the Future 117

Sources 149

Index 180