Ron Paul had an interesting perspective on this topic.
The root causes for current crisis
Credit default swap: Wiki entry, the weapon of mass destruction Buffett referred a while ago. Obviously Bear Stearns, Lehman and AIG are all brought down by that.
宋鸿兵: 金融海啸来袭 美国金融危机可能进一步升级. Mr. Song was the author of Currency War (in Chinese), and he is the manager of Structural Products dept. of Hongyuan Securities in China.
Video at Charlie Rose
A discussion about the crisis on Wall Street, Sept 16 2008 (long, about 56 mins)