Meltdown by Thomas Woods

[C.W.]

I have finished reading Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse and highly recommend it. I would say that without understanding the material in this book you do not know why we are in the mess we are in economically and why the recovery is as slow as it is and will be. I have reviewed the book here. I found the book because a friend mentioned that Yaron Brooke had recommended it.

There are many good reasons to read the book. It is fairly well written. It provides more than enough detail and documentation. It gives you a good idea of the theoretical basis of his analysis, which is grounded in von Mises and the Austrians.

One thing, however, several times I have written in this forum about the Fed’s actions, especially its credit expansion, as being very significant and bad for the economy. Maybe my writing isn’t very clear as few seem to understand or agree. Woods emphasizes that the Austrians consider the government expansion of credit to be the beginning of the business cycle.

I think that understanding capitalism in detail is important for it supporters. This is a good book to begin learning about the economics of capitalism.