House of cards: a tale of hubris and wretched excess on Wall Street

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.