Some overviews of the financial crisis

Both from Project Syndicate. Robert Skidelsky in http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky9:
"Cycles of economic fashion are as old as business cycles, and are usually caused by deep business disturbances. “Liberal” cycles are followed by “conservative” cycles, which give way to new “liberal” cycles, and so on.
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At issue here is the oldest unresolved dilemma in economics: are market economies “naturally” stable or do they need to be stabilized by policy? Keynes emphasized the flimsiness of the expectations on which economic activity in decentralized markets is based. The future is inherently uncertain, and therefore investor psychology is fickle.
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Liberal cycles, the historian Arthur Schlesinger thought, succumb to the corruption of power, conservative cycles to the corruption of money. Both have their characteristic benefits and costs.

But if we look at the historical record, the liberal regime of the 1950’s and 1960’s was more successful than the conservative regime that followed. Outside China and India, whose economic potential was unleashed by market economics, economic growth was faster and much more stable in the Keynesian golden age than in the age of Friedman; its fruits were more equitably distributed; social cohesion and moral habits better maintained. These are serious benefits to weigh against some business sluggishness."

Harold James in The Geopolitical Consequences of the Financial Crisis:
"First, private sector solutions have been tried but have failed in a breathtakingly short space of time......The second question is what kind of government can do the job? Not just any government will do. Mid-sized European governments can possibly rescue mid-sized European institutions, but in the case of really major financial conglomerates at the heart of the world’s financial system, there are probably only two governments that have the fire power: the US and China.
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China is the America of this century. The initial stages of the credit crunch in 2007 were managed so apparently painlessly because sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East, but above all from China, were willing to step in and recapitalize the debt of American and European institutions. The pivotal moment in today’s events came when the Chinese SWF China Investment Co. was unwilling to go further in its exploration of buying Lehman Brothers. CIC’s turning back will be held up in the future as a moment when history could have turned in a different direction." The thesis seems to be that the Great Depression could have been avoided if America stepped in to rescue Europe and now China should step in to save USA and the globalized world economy.
Brad Setser too has been discussing the role of China in the crisis, for example,here:
"China — by far the largest official holder of Agency bonds — also seems to have expressed its concerns directly to the Treasury. Harden and Cha of the Washington Post report that Chinese officials told the US to do “whatever is necessary to protect their investments.”"