Charles Gasparino’s “The Sellout” analyzes the root causes of the 2008 financial crisis. The book explores how government policies that encouraged homeownership, along with Wall Street greed, led the country into economic despair.

In his book, Nassim Nicholas Taleb stresses the importance of what he calls “anti-knowledge.” In other words, what we don’t know. Our ignorance of anti-knowledge is what sets us up for failure when highly improbable events, or black swans, arrive.

Charles Ferguson explores the biggest financial catastrophe the world has ever seen brought on by 30 years of deregulation, risky financial instruments, conflicts of interest, fraud, toxic loans and a handful of CEOs who eventually destroyed their own companies.

Brendan Moynihan, editor-at-large for Bloomberg News, simplifies the financial crisis and pieces together an elaborate history leading up to the event.

Are you curious how Wall Street works? Do you want more knowledge about how to manage your finances? “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” is a timely and straightforward guide for the individual investor. A classic in finance literature, this book comes packed with strategies and insight that you can use in your own investments.

CDS, CDO and MBS are just some of the more complex acronyms in the financial world, and all the more reason to understand them, according to Charles R. Morris, a lawyer, former banker and author of The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers and the Great Credit Crash.

The Big Short is unique because rather than taking us inside the heads of the crooked Wall Street bankers, it illuminates the recent crisis through the minds of a very small minority of traders and investors who were on the other side – those who realized something was seriously wrong with the financial system before anyone else did.

Photo from C-SPAN

The third session of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s first day of testimonies focused on a group of former Citigroup Inc. bankers and risk managers, who played a role in the bank’s risk management and collateralized debt obligation (CDO) business.

BY JOHN DETRIXHE – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

A story in today’s Financial Times makes Wall Street at least appear to be a little more compassionate. It seems that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, after telling other executives to stop luring away Bear Stearns employees, has sent more than 30 letters to clients and colleagues [...]