Skullduggery: The True Causes of the Financial Crisis

I spent 30 years of my life, 1977-2008, working in financial services - either for Wall Street or self-employed as a mortgage banker with 300+ employees in 39 states! In the 70's when I graduated from high school and college, the country was besieged with protests over the war in Viet Nam and those protests tore the fabric of our society. My best friend from age 11 to 19 joined the Navy and became a SEAL. Each time he came home on leave and in the years after he left the Navy, I heard bits and pieces of some of the things he had to do and my heart bled. We also had the shootings at Kent State and the Watergate scandal under President Nixon. The country was ripped apart, much like the past 3 1/2 years, by social and political conflicts, riots and demonstrations. A pervasive air of racial strife persisted, caused by the shooting of Martin Luther King. Not surprisingly, a schism formed in the country just as the leading edge of the baby boom generation was becoming adults. It seemed that my generation transformed into "hippies / flower children" labels analogous today with progressives / socialists / Occupy Wall Street protestors. Others became conservatives. That first group was the epitome of "sex, drugs and rock and roll" even into adulthood while the second group seemed mostly to grow past that stage and become business leaders / self-employed entrepreneurs / conservatives. In Skullduggery, I make the case that it was the 60's and early 70's that caused the majority of 76,000,000 baby boomers to evolve into Democrats or Republicans. At my 20th, 30th and 40th year high school reunions, talking to my friends that were in both of those groups, I estimate that 90% of the "hippies" are liberals today and 90% of the others are conservatives. The exceptions are rare. The point of bringing this up is that eventually the country returned to more peaceful times: the Viet Nam conflict ended, Nixon resigned in disgrace and