Politicians, commentators as well as experts believe that the current crisis is the result of "greed" and "wild capitalism". In reality, however, the economic turmoil we are witnessing is but the natural consequence of a long chain of interventionist policies that have undermined the market economy. At the beginning of 2007, the American real-estate market was showing its first signs of weakness. After the heights reached in 2006 and continuous growth for over a decade, house prices went into decline all over the United States.