In the article Wall Street on the Tundra, financial writer Michael Lewis is able to brilliantly summarize the roots of the economic meltdown in just three sentences.

When you borrow a lot of money to create a false prosperity, you import the future into the present. It isnt the actual future so much as some grotesque silicon version of it. Leverage buys you a glimpse of a prosperity you havent really earned.

dump the debt by Flickr user Daveybot