The Crime of Our Time

Book excerpt: Schechter goes right for the jugular in this rich and informative analysis of the financial crisis and its roots. Not errors, accident, market uncertainties, and so on, but crime; major and serious crime. A harsh judgment, but it's not easy to dismiss the case that he constructs. - Noam Chomsky Veteran journalist Danny Schechter investigates a complex web of fraud and crime that he shows played a major - if largely unreported - role in bringing the economy down. His four-year investigation focuses on three interconnected cesspools of corruption; what the FBI calls an epidemic of mortgage fraud, predatory and deceptive securitization by Wall Street, and insurance scams.