Many people want to know how this country got into its current economic mess. The news this weekend that some of Wall Street's biggest, most prestigious financial institutions (Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG) are failing and need to be rescued will raise many more questions.
Of course, the full story is quite complicated, but one of the main drivers behind the current problems is the housing crisis, and the fact that these institutions allowed many homeowners to take on way more debt than they could handle.