In the early 1930s, in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and start of the Great Depression, a U.S. Senate committee investigated the causes of that financial crisis, eventually releasing a report (known colloquially as the Pecora Report, after the committee's aggressive counsel Ferdinand Pecora) that set the standard for candid fact-telling and blunt analysis. The Pecora Report's conclusions led directly to the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission and much of the regulatory framework governing the U.S. banking system for the next sixty years.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall banking law, and into the first decade of the new century, that regulatory framework was either gutted or ignored, by bankers and regulators alike. The financial meltdown of 2008 was the result--a wholly avoidable, man-made crisis. Such is the first conclusion of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in its Final Report, a 2011 incarnation of the Pecora Report and the most comprehensive accounting to date of the essential facts, causes, and consequences of the 2008 crisis.

The Final Report also concludes that the 2008 crisis was caused by "widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision" by government regulators; that "dramatic failures of corporate governance and risk management at many systematically important financial institutions" were also to blame; and that "excessive borrowing, risky investments, and lack of transparency" also played a part.

This version of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is not the official, government sanctioned version. That version is officially published by Public Affairs and is available from retailers everywhere. Rather, this version is the COMPLETE REPORT including the dissenting views written and filed by several Republican members of the Commission, including Keith Hennessey, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Bill Thomas and Peter J. Wallison. These commissioners participated in the hearings and discussions of the Commission, but voted against the final findings and conclusions; their dissenting views are included in this version of the Report.

Only time will tell if this Final Report has the lasting regulatory impact of the Pecora Report, or leads to any meaningful legislation or rulemaking whatsoever. But the first step toward solving a problem is to clearly define the problem. And this Report is the clearest definition yet of the causes--and continuing aftershocks and risks--of our most recent financial crisis.