Book recommendation: “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers and the Great Credit Crash” by Charles Morris.

This was published early this year, but it presents the whole cast of villains and idiots behind the present Wall Street disaster: Pirates, swindlers, shills, evil geniuses, sophisticated dupes, predatory mathematicians.

A great line: “As a general rule, only the very smartest people can make truly catastrophic mistakes.”