a fascinating read...

William Cohan's HOUSE OF CARDS tells the tale of Bear Stearns, a Wall Street powerhouse, that disappeared in just ten days in March 2008. Bear's acquisition by JP Morgan Chase underwritten by the US taxpayer was the first in a series of unprecedented events -- the intervention of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman's bankruptcy, the US Government's support of AIG, the doubling of the Fed's balance sheet to provide liquidity to frozen markets, the US Government's bailout of GM and Chrysler -- that contained the fallout from the financial crisis sufficiently so that we got a "Great Recession" instead of another 1930's style depression.

HOUSE OF CARDS is worth reading now for two reasons. First, in Washington, Europe and at the G-20, governments are debating the kind of regulatory framework necessary to reduce the chances of a repeat of the financial crisis that threatened the world economy. Second, as the European sovereign debt crisis continues to roil the markets, it's worth remembering that crises that seem to have been surmounted can come back to bite.