In recent history, governments have nationalized banks when the pressures of internationalized financial markets and international competition have made it difficult for them to control and stabilize their finances and currency. During the last couple of decades, countries as different as Mexico, France, Sweden, and Japan carried out partial or more or less complete bank [...]

Traditional global credit markets have frozen, and they’re proving difficult to unstick. Under-capitalized banks are not keen to lend out what’s left on their balance sheets—not even and sometimes especially not to each other—and the value of the U.S. currency has risen steeply relative to those of other nations as banks around the world hoard [...]

With the U.S. credit crunch gone global and the $700 billion bailout package now looking like a small drop of water in a tidal wave of woe, the question of blame is now all over the media.
Who caused this mess?
If you read the Wall Street Journal you could easily come away thinking that the whole [...]