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All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis

The New York Times bestseller hailed as the best business book of 2010" (Huffington Post).
As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers?
According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, the real answer is all of the above-and more. Many devils helped bring hell to the economy. And the full story, in all of its complexity and detail, is like the legend of the blind men and the elephant. Almost everyone has missed the big picture. Almost no one has put all the pieces together.
All the Devils Are Here goes back several decades to weave the hidden history of the financial crisis in a way no previous book has done. It explores the motivations of everyone from famous CEOs, cabinet secretaries, and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers, analysts, and Wall Street traders. It delves into the powerful American mythology of homeownership. And it proves that the crisis ultimately wasn't about finance at all; it was about human nature.


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The New York Times bestseller hailed as the best business book of 2010" (Huffington Post).
As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers?
According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, the real answer is all of the above-and more. Many devils helped bring hell to the economy. And the full story, in all of its complexity and detail, is like the legend of the blind men and the elephant. Almost everyone has missed the big picture. Almost no one has put all the pieces together.
All the Devils Are Here goes back several decades to weave the hidden history of the financial crisis in a way no previous book has done. It explores the motivations of everyone from famous CEOs, cabinet secretaries, and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers, analysts, and Wall Street traders. It delves into the powerful American mythology of homeownership. And it proves that the crisis ultimately wasn't about finance at all; it was about human nature.


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OK, I've found the pearl in the flower, now where's the bewitched fraulein?

"There was once an old castle in the midst of a large and dense forest, and in it an old woman who was a witch dwelt all alone. In the day-time she changed herself into a cat or a screech-owl, but in the evening she took her proper shape again as a human being. She could lure wild beasts and birds to her, and then she killed and boiled and roasted them. If anyone came within one hundred paces of the castle he was obliged to stand still, and could not stir from the place until she bade him be free. But whenever an innocent maiden came within this circle, she changed her into a bird, and shut her up in a wicker-work cage, and carried the cage into a room in the castle. She had about seven thousand cages of rare birds in the castle.

Now, there was once a maiden who was called Jorinda, who was fairer than all other girls. She and a handsome youth named Joringel had promised to marry each other. They were still in the days of betrothal, and their greatest happiness was being together. One day in order that they might be able to talk together in peace they went for a walk in the forest.

"Take care," said Joringel, "that you do not go too near the castle."

It was a beautiful evening. The sun shone brightly between the trunks of the trees into the dark green of the forest, and the turtle-doves sang mournfully upon the beech trees.

Jorinda wept now and then. She sat down in the sunshine and was sorrowful. Joringel was sorrowful too. They were as sad as if they were about to die. Then they looked around them, and were quite at a loss, for they did not know by which way they should go home. The sun was still half above the mountain and half under. Joringel looked through the bushes, and saw the old walls of the castle close at hand. He was horror-stricken and filled with deadly fear. Jorinda was singing,

"My little bird, with the necklace red,
Sings sorrow, sorrow, sorrow,
He sings that the dove must soon be dead,
Sings sorrow, sor - jug, jug, jug."

Joringel looked for Jorinda. She was changed into a nightingale, and sang, jug, jug, jug. A screech-owl with glowing eyes flew three times round about her, and three times cried, to-whoo, to-whoo, to-whoo.

Joringel could not move. He stood there like a stone, and could neither weep nor speak, nor move hand or foot. The sun had now set. The owl flew into the thicket, and directly afterwards there came out of it a crooked old woman, yellow and lean, with large red eyes and a hooked nose, the point of which reached to her chin. She muttered to herself, caught the nightingale, and took it away in her hand. Joringel could neither speak nor move from the spot. The nightingale was gone.

At last the woman came back, and said in a hollow voice, "Greet you, Zachiel. If the moon shines on the cage, Zachiel, let him loose at once."

Then Joringel was freed. He fell on his knees before the woman and begged that she would give him back his Jorinda, but she said that he should never have her again, and went away. He called, he wept, he lamented, but all in vain, "Hooh, what is to become of me?"

Joringel went away, and at last came to a strange village, where he kept big white friendly goats for a long time and painted pictures of them. The villagers were very grateful to him because the goats had kept escaping and eating all their ornamental shrubs. He often walked round and round the castle, but not too near to it. At last he dreamt one night that he found a golden-yellow flower, in the middle of which was a beautiful large pearl, that he picked the flower and went with it to the castle, and that everything he touched with the flower was freed from enchantment. He also dreamt that by means of it he recovered his Jorinda. In the morning, when he awoke, he began to seek over hill and dale for such a flower. He sought until the ninth day, and then, early in the morning, he found the golden-yellow flower. In the middle of it there was a large dew-drop, as big as the finest pearl.

Day and night he journeyed with this flower to the castle. When he was within a hundred paces of it he was not held fast, but walked on to the door. Joringel was full of joy. He touched the door with the flower, and it sprang open. He walked in through the courtyard, and listened for the sound of the birds. At last he heard it. He went on and found the room from whence it came, and there the witch was feeding the birds in the seven thousand cages.

When she saw Joringel she was angry, very angry, and scolded and spat poison and gall at him, but she could not come within two paces of him. He did not take any notice of her, but went and looked at the cages with the birds. But there were many hundred nightingales, how was he to find his Jorinda again. Just then he saw the old woman quietly t

Kanazawa's 21st Century Art Museum, or ??21????? if you want to be fancy about it, is a large, thick, glass and steel wheel lying down in a field of grass in the middle of the pouring sunlight. As I biked past it in the morning I saw a flock of shiny metal chairs loitering around the grounds, each about the shape of an oversized grammaphone horn with its tip buried in the earth. The chairs glinting and shining in the bright morning sun, you begin to think "how dumb! of COURSE no one's sitting in your dumb modern artsy chairs outside the museum because they're probably each a hundred thousand degrees by now from being outside and made of shiny metal!" Modern arts! Feh!

But as with many of my silly expectations about this trip, I was proved wrong. They aren't like chairs at all; in fact, they WERE more like grammaphone bells: what you see is the opening of a long, long metal tube that runs underground from where it looks like it's planted and finds itself eventually at another similar mouthpiece somewhere else on the grounds. And then you can talk to people! Like super, super far away to where the people you can talk to can't see you at all! You can talk to strangers, which can be difficult, or you can talk to the five year old daughter of the metal talky flower next to yours, like I did. The horns all look the same, but they all have very different designs on the cover inside of it, and that's what you're looking at now. Good times, had by all.