”(T)he very people who devised the policies that produced the mess are now posing as the wise public servants who will show us the way out,” writes Thomas Woods in Meltdown. Already in its sixth week on the New York Times best-seller list, this eminently readable book traces the Fed’s role in every financial crisis since this creature was spawned on Jekyl Island in 1913... Herbert Hoover, contrary to the myth that he was a small-government conservative, renounced laissez-faire, raised taxes, launched public works projects, extended emergency loans to failing businesses and lent money to the states for relief programs. Hoover did what Obama is doing.