House of cards : a tale of hubris and wretched excess on Wall Street / William D. Cohan.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [451]-456) and index.

I. HOW IT HAPPENED: TEN DAYS IN MARCH. The ultimate roach motel -- The confidence game -- "Bear Stearns is not in trouble!" -- The run on the bank -- The armies of the night -- Feeding frenzy -- Total panic -- The price of moral hazard? Two dollars -- The Fed comes to the rescue (after the bubble is over) -- Mooning at the wake -- New developments from hell -- "We're the bad guys" -- II. WHY IT HAPPENED: 85 YEARS. Cy -- Ace -- Jimmy May Day -- Maimchinkel Malintz Anaynikal -- The joy of mortgage-backed securities -- "Bullies always cave" -- The math whiz and the baseball star -- "We're all going to a picnic and the tickets are 250 million dollars each" -- The fish rots from the head -- III. THE END OF THE 2ND GILDED AGE. The 10-in-10 strategy -- Cayne CAPs Spector -- Cioffi's bubble -- "The entire subprime market is toast" -- "If there's fraud, we're gonna pay" -- A very stupid decision -- Nashville -- The Cayne Mutiny -- Desperate times call for hare-brained schemes -- The deluge.

William D. Cohan's superb and shocking narrative chronicles the fall of Bear Stearns and the end of the Second Gilded Age on Wall Street, explaining how a combination of risky bets, corporate political infighting, lax government regulations and truly bad decision-making wrought havoc on the world financial system.