In the aftermath of the great American Housing Bubble Collapse, there has been no shortage of scapegoats upon whom to cast the blame. Unfortunately, the quest for scapegoats has concentrated primarily on those “responsible for the housing bubble collapse.” The case ismade in this book that this quest is fundamentally misdirected. All bubbles, like all Ponzi schemes, ultimately collapse, the only question being that of timing. While it is true that it took a “perfect storm” of confluent events and influences to administer the final pinprick into the thin skin of the housing balloon, it is submitted herein that all of these “causes” are but trivial considerations compared with the causes of the creation of the bubble itself. Indeed, this perfect storm may actually have been a blessing in disguise for causing the inevitable collapse sooner rather than later—that is, before it got any bigger with even greater potential to cause disastrous economic dislocation.

在美国房地产泡沫破灭之后，有不少替罪羊要归咎于谁。不幸的是，寻找替罪羊的努力主要集中在那些“应对房地产泡沫破裂负责”的人身上。本书中的案例表明，这种寻找根本上是错误的。所有的泡沫，就像所有的庞氏骗局一样，最终都会崩溃，唯一的问题是时机问题。诚然，它采取了一个“完美风暴”的汇合事件和影响，以管理最后的针刺穿薄皮肤的住房气球，在这里提出，所有这些“原因”只是微不足道的考虑相比，造成泡沫本身的原因。事实上，这场完美的风暴实际上可能是一种因祸得福，因为它迟早会导致不可避免的崩溃，也就是说，在它变得更大、更可能造成灾难性经济混乱之前。