Free markets, unfortunately, are prone to excess. In the end, we’re all speculators at heart. Most of us can remember pretty clearly what our most recent recession - mostly caused by the internet bubble bursting and exacerbated by 9/11. Outside of the bursting of a bubble, that market correction could be chalked up to natural business cycle more so than our current market turmoil which was created by the poor decisions of a handful of investment professionals. To find a true parallel, we have to look further back to the Savings and Loan Crisis in the late 1980s...

Click the link to read more. This is probably the first in a two part series where the next part will examine the current credit crunch and whether or not history will repeat itself entirely or if maybe we've entered uncharted territory with the whole mortgage backed security mess.