There are plenty of books about the financial crisis, but this is the only one that brings Wall Street culture to life and shows how reckless excess was fed by Washington politicians.  The author, "Joe Tibman," is a pseudonym for a senior investment banker who worked at Lehman Brothers from before it was spun off by American Express in 1994 until the day it died, Monday, September 21, 2008.  He shows smart people hard at work, trying to survive in the capital market jungles as rampaging CEOs alternately act as saviors and murderers.  There's a lot at stake for the country and for each person individually.  The tension is laden with four-letter words and is only broken by winning a big bonus or getting fired.  Personal rivalries are rife, as are intense loyalties when Lehman is brought back from the dead.  "Joe" doesn't pull any punches with his mea culpas about "drinking the Kool-Aid," "rationalizing away risks...of delusional financiers," and he's not shy about laying blame on Lehman's CEO Dick Fuld, the villain of the story.

I'm touting this book not only because it rings true about the Wall Street I know, but because it implicates the Washington political leaders who paved the way for Wall Street's excessive risk taking and predatory lending.  President Bill Clinton pushed hard for easier mortgage credit to get lower income Americans into their own homes that they couldn't afford.  Senate Banking Chair Phil Gramm (R-TX) repealed Glass-Steagall restrictions on investment banks and warded off attempts to regulate predatory lending, credit rating agencies, and the shadow banking system.  At the behest of President Bush, SEC Chair Bill Donaldson, an investment banker, dismantled SEC enforcement and looked the other way as investment banks ran wild.  Ironically, Bush pushed Donaldson out for demanding tougher regulation of hedge funds and mutual funds and replaced him with Rep. Chris Cox, an even stronger champion of deregulation and laissez-faire.  Fed Chair Alan Greenspan stoked the fires with easy money and argued that the market was the best regulator of risk-taking of financial institutions.  That's an argument you won't here too many people making these days.

As in Washington, so it is on Wall Street, a relatively few overly aggressive leaders wreck havoc by reaching far beyond their grasp, leaving it up to many subordinates and to the rest of the country to suffer the consequences and to wonder how this could happen.  I recommend you read The Murder of Lehman Brothers to find out why the financial crisis happened.