Reckless Endangerment describes the players that helped create the housing bubble and bust that were at the heart of the financial crisis. Gretchen Morgenson and Josh Rosner focus on how regulators and other officials were complicit by promoting liberalized housing finance as a way to increase homeownership. Their account chronicles how a naïve vision of the American Dream, that of homeownership as the foundation of upward mobility and stable communities, turned into a nightmare in the hands of a growth driven and increasingly predatory mortgage complex.

If you thought “We never saw it coming” sounds like a bit of song and dance, well, as Jimmy Durante would say, You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Brooksley Born wants to know the effect of credit default swaps on the housing bubble and the Great Crash. Citibank representatives don’t think there was an effect. Yves Smith disagrees.