Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves

by Andrew Ross Sorkin

One of the first causalities of the credit crunch was two Bear Stearns hedge funds that had invested heavily in securities backed by subprime mortgages. It was those mortgages that were now undermining confidence in the housing market—a market that Fannie and Freddie dominated, underwriting more than 40 percent of all mortgages, most of which were quickly losing value.