The credit crunch is affecting every investor and every consumer, every industry and every government programme, yet few people truly understand how it happened. Sub-prime mortgages have been centre stage, but behind the scenes a conspiracy of greed among bankers, investors, rating agencies and regulators has imperilled everyone's financial future. We need to know what went wrong and how to change the practices that led to this calamity. "Bloomberg" columnist Mark Gilbert shows how wall street's tolerance for extremes made the global credit crunch both forseeable and inevitable. He offers a blow-by-blow account of what went wrong and what lessons need to be learned from the crisis. His argument - that everyone with skin in the money game had a vested interest in pretending that nothing could go awry - is a well-defended, compelling indictment of the financial community.