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.

Most of the time, you can ignore that foot on your neck. You can pretend that electoral politics work and that we are a nation of law, not of rich people. You can revel when your tribe puts someone in office, and pretend that the person you voted for is working in your interests.

Not today. Today it is confirmed: there will be no prosecutions, there will be no accountability for the rich financiers and their clients who caused the Great Crash of 2008, profited mightily, fought off regulation, and escaped with their personal fortunes and their reputations intact, all as part of the great muddle-through plan of the Obama administration.

A lot of hope was placed on the back of Elizabeth Warren and the financial reform act passed by Congress at the behest of the Administration formally known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Concurrent with belittling the liberal Democratic activist base as ungrateful whiners, the Administration and Democratic leadership has touted Liz Warren and Dodd-Frank as prime examples of accomplishments that should thrill and satisfy the base. But are those “accomplishments” really all that and should they mollify Democrats, at least on financial reform issues? The initial returns indicate no.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, virtually moribund for the last decade while giant vampire squids looted local, state and union pension funds and misled investors, has finally chosen to take on Goldman Sachs for conning everyone. Who knew?