After a year of epic financial crisis, 2009 will — if all goes well — be a time for digging ourselves out of the mess and figuring out how to prevent a repeat. Before we can do that, we have to have some idea of what went wrong. People are still arguing about what caused the Depression of the 1930s, so don't expect a definitive diagnosis anytime soon. But here's my current list of blame, or at least the first dozen items on it, in descending order of culpability.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1869041_1869040,00.html
Interesting run down of 12 people/reasons, including you and me, for the financial meltdown.