In October 2008, Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, admitted to Congress that he'd found a flaw in his economic model of how the world works. He'd placed too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets. In a system based on the unsustainable lending necessary to fuel continued spending, the world found to its cost what happens when that credit bubble bursts. Drawing on interviews with leading world economists, The Flaw attempts to explain - in unprecedented depth - the underlying causes of the global financial crisis. Unless the root causes of the problem are addressed, the system may collapse again, and next time it may not be possible for governments to rescue it.