A long read for someone like me who doesn't understand banking - but worthwhile, enlightening. I recommend this book.

Sample thought:
"In Washington, Republicans and Democrats both concluded that excessive reliance on bankers to stabilize the financial system in times of turbulence was too high a risk to their own influence over the country, and possibly damaging to America's status in the world. The axiom that the group that controlled the money controlled the country remained true. But with the nation struggling economically, such a condition had political implications and had to be navigated accordingly.
Taft knew this when he campaigned on a vow to continue Roosevelt's reform policies, including the trustbusting activities Roosevelt had set in motion. Though his own background was largely blue-bloodedand warm toward the financiers, he knre the population blamed the bankers for their problems and that the Democrats would capitalize on those suspicions if he didn't balance his support for business interests with empathy for the public.The tactic worked. In the presidential election of 1908 Taft won handily over populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan, even as the country was experiencing a post-Panic recession."

[With this outstanding book together with Ms. Prins' other books, It Takes a Pillage and OPM, clearly establishes her as the Devil's Historian!] To understand the relationships between politicians and the bankers of Wall Street, one needs to read this book for a most realistic grounding. Nothing escapes this author's notice in recounting the financial history of recent events. Ms. Prins most concisely explains, in the most pithy manner possible, those events leading up to the economic meltdown, the cluelessness, or disingenuousness of Fed Chairman Bernanke just preceding it, and the logical timeline leading to it historically. To understand that the banks primarily created [along with investment houses and hedge funds] the credit derivatives which they profited from, then lent the money to various financial services firms and hedge funds to purchase these derivatives, then took over said investment houses - - or business - - after they exploded - - such as Chase taking over Bear Stearns - - you begin to understand the Big Picture of Corruption! [The Publishers Weekly review was both a cheap and vulgar shot, and most disreputable given the scholarship behind this book, but perhaps the critic hasn't read a Bloomberg or Financial Times article in the last eight years? To refute this critic, just read the passage on NAFTA, and the Mexican banking system, and then you'll understand why the Mexican government recently attempted to extradite Ernesto Zedilla from the US; Ms. Prins simply provides us with the historical information with no conjecture on her part!]