For those of you interested in what actually happened to cause the financial meltdown, go here and get clued in to a Frontline presentation called The Warning, featuring one Brooksley Born, the head of the CFTC prior to the implosion.   I actually had one interaction with her and found her rigid, unwilling to listen to others she considered inferior to her (everyone), and so involved in whatever she was into that she seemed on another planet.   It turns out that I was on the right planet in that I thought the futures and derivatives market was being rigged by outsiders and was actually out of control, but I had no idea of the extent of the problem and the power of the government insiders who actually ran the deal.  My instinct from my experience of twenty years of trading is that this Frontline program will be right on target and spares no one.  It's on starting tomorrow.