Since there's a handful of libertarians on this board, I'd like to get some opinions on the recent financial crisis and argument for/against a lack of regulations and oversight. Don't these developments put a hole in the standard argument that even if businesses don't look out for the greater public good on their own, they will at least keep each other/themselves in check for the good of their industries? I understand these developments were not in a vacuum free of government, but I feel like it's similar to what would happen as a libertarian government came to power and slowly dismantled regulations. I'd like to hear some opinions on this, and maybe some links to articles that discuss the theory of this if anyone knows of some good ones.

For starters....
http://volokh.com/posts/1224544434.shtml

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/ward-aaron4.html

Not really, because you never started from the "hands off" approach. We have had corporate welfare and massive tax break/subsidy programs for so long that no one seriously posits we've had a free market economy unless they're in public and have to lie.

You can't start from being in bed with major corporate interests, let them leave "deregulation" laws on the nightstand that amount to you handing them monopolies on the public or public resources with no accountability and barely any reproachability at all, and think that's going to result in anything but a catastrophe.