Suskind, without stanching the flow of his tale, is able to
elucidate how it came to pass that the Reagan-through-Bush II reign
of financial deregulation, along with cybernetic chicanery, defective
and incomprehensible financial "products," and banking greed unmoored
from social, personal, and fiduciary responsibility, created a monstrous
"debt machine" that turbocharged inequality of wealth, inflated bubbles,
diverted talent and investment from making things to making bets, bilked
millions on the edge to enrich thousands on the heights, and ended -- if
it ended -- by pushing the poor, the middle class, and the real economy
into the abyss.
-- Hendrik Hertzberg. "The Book on Barack" a comment of
Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President,
by Ron Suskind. New Yorker (October 3, 2011).