Some recent Essays I found insightful:

• Gretchen Morgenson, How the Thundering Herd Faltered and Fell, The New York Times, 08 November 2008.
  
  The Reckoning series at The New York Times.


• ** Michael Lewis, The End of Wall Street's Boom, Portfolio.com, 11 November 2008.
  Lewis is the author of Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage of Wall Street, 1989 (Amazon.com) and other books on the failings of the U.S. financial industry.
  This is one of the more useful essays I have read for understanding the financial industry's problems.


• Leslie Thatcher, Herve Kempf: Taking Responsibility for a Historic Crisis, TruthOut.org, 13 November 2008.
  Kempf is the author of How the Rich are Destroying the Earth, 2008 (Amazon.com).


• Lisa Bennett, Are Human Beings Hard-Wired to Ignore the Threat of Catastrophic Climate Change?, AlterNet.org, 14 November 2008.


• Frances Fox Piven, Obama Needs a Protest Movement, The Nation, 15 November 2008.
  Frances Fox Piven is the author of Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, 1977 (Amazon.com).


• # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer, Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009, Project Censored.


• Paul B. Farrell, 30 reasons for Great Depression 2 by 2011, MarketWatch.com, 19 November 2008.


• Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: A Consumer's Paradise of War; Stuff Happens: The Pentagon's Argument of Last Resort on Iraq, TomDispatch.com, 20 November 2008.


• Henry A. Giroux, Against the Militarized Academy, TruthOut.org, 20 November 2008.
  Giroux is the author of The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex, 2007 (Amazon.com).


• Jeremy Scahill, This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House, AlterNet.org, 20 November 2008.


• Joshua Holland, Dingell Loses to Waxman, and Auto Stocks Dive -- Call It What It Is: Corruption, AlterNet.org, 21 November 2008.


• Bernard Avishai, Why Detroit Can't Keep Up, The Washington Post, 23 November 2008.


• Paul Rosenberg, New Deal Denialism--Conservative Liars On The Rampage, OpenLeft.com, 23 November 2008.


• Neil Irwin, Fed's Role in Crisis Is Giant, if Opaque, The Washington Post, 24 November 2008.

Cheat Sheet at The Daily Beast: a very good source of "Must Reads."