Crisis Commission Gives Wall Street a Pass
The report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has been assailed as a confusing mishmash—poorly organized and weakened by obvious and unsatisfying conclusions.
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The problems of the commission were evident from the start: its mandate was too broad, its timetable too short, its budget too small and its commissioners too partisan. Those criticisms are true, but overdone. The report is full of fascinating information, rich detail and fine documentary evidence. The commission should be celebrated for putting more than 1,100 documents online for anyone to search. For me, the report’s biggest failing is its timidity in engaging the most important question looming over the crash: What did Wall Street know and when did it know it?
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