This guy (Pearlstein) was just announced as a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in the field of Economics. From the Washington Post:

Pearlstein won the commentary award for a variety of columns, many of them focused on his early warnings that mounting problems in subprime mortgages and other credit markets posed a serious threat to the nation's economy. He wrote Aug. 11: "This is a financial, economic and political time bomb that is likely to force families out of their homes; dump millions of houses and condos onto an already glutted market; and result in massive losses for mortgage lenders, hedge funds, banks, insurance companies and pension funds that hold securities backed by, or somehow tied to, these troubled mortgages."