We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable. The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire. The captains of finance and the public stewards of our financial system ignored warnings and failed to question, understand, and manage evolving risks within a system essential to the well-being of the American public. Theirs was a big miss, not a stumble…

Three firms — Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and the securities arm of Citigroup—accounted for more than 30 % of CDOs structured from 2004 to 2007.
Deutsche Bank and UBS were also major participants.