The book analyses the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States in an attempt to assign responsibility for the collapse of a number of mortgage companies in 2007-2008 and for the sharp rise in mortgage defaults in the wake of the sudden tightening of mortgage credit in the summer and early fall of 2007. The authors find that, while blame can be laid at every link of the mortgage production chain (borrowers, brokers, wholesale lenders) the ultimate culprits are Wall Street firms that carelessly securitized mortgage loan pools without appropriate diligence and attention to the quality of the underlying loans.
