Fundamental themes -- What happened? -- Government monetary policy: the Fed as the primary cause -- FDIC insurance: the background cause -- Government housing policy: the proximate cause -- The essential role of banks in a complex economy: the liquidity challenge -- The residential real-estate-market bubble and financial-market stress -- Failure of the rating agencies: the subprime mortgage market and its impact on capital markets -- Pick-a-payment mortgages: a toxic product of FDIC insurance -- How Freddie and Fannie grew to dominate the home mortgage lending business -- Fair-value accounting and wealth destruction -- Derivatives and shadow banking: a misunderstanding -- The myth that "deregulation" caused the financial crisis -- How the SEC made matters worse -- Market corrections are necessary, but panics are destructive and avoidable -- TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) -- What we could have--and should have--done -- The cure for the banking industry: systematically move toward pure capitalism -- Some political cures: government policy -- Our short-term path and how to end unemployment -- The deepest cause is philosophical -- The cure is also philosophical -- How the United States could go broke -- The need for principled action.