Most “explanations” for the phases of the economic or business cycle are just descriptions of symptoms. Nobel-Prize (1974) winning economist Friedrich August von Hayek however hit the nail on the head: Government intervention is to blame. See this short video.

What this video doesn’t explain is something else Hayek pointed out. Namely that much of the money used by governments to incentivise the economy in this or that direction is created out of thin air. It’s called “fiat money”, with “fiat” being Latin for “let there be”, as in “let there be light” (“fiat lux”) in Genesis 1:3, God’s very first commandment.

And herein lies the very heart of the problem of our time. We allow governments to play God by allowing them (or rather their central banks, which essentially amounts to the same thing) to create money out of nothing. It is a huge fraud, which every now and again collides with reality and breaks down. That is what economists then call a “recession” or “depression” or “downturn” or “bust”. It also is the prime cause of inflation.

Once the general population has worked that out, it will be game over for interventionist governments playing God.

For more on Hayek, see here.