I launched this blog as part of an effort to challenge systemic risk, more popularly called Too Big To Fail. The focus is on the biggest banks and how they are woven into the fabric of the financial system.

We are in a credit crisis after the bursting of the financial bubble. To develop solutions to systemic risk one needs to understand its causes. The blog posts stem from my professional credit analyst’s perspective. The public debate needs more independent voices – those who are informed and experienced, but less fettered by institutional shackles.

The blog is intended to serve intelligent debate of systemic risk, measures Congress claims to have taken and the actions of regulators. The blog is associated with my book, Fairy Tale Capitalism: Fact and Fiction Behind Too Big To Fail, the 10-year history of the building of the financial bubble. It is available in electronic, softcover and hardcover formats from AuthorHouse (the publisher), Amazon and other major distributors.

I lived the developments that led to the bubble, first as a corporate banker at Citibank then as a Senior Credit Officer at Moody’s Investors Service, the major rating agency, where I was in the Electric Power Group (not the much-discredited Structured Finance Group). The book captures both my own personal experience and a narrative of public record that shows the assembly of the bubble’s major components. The crisis is as much political as financial. The book is written in simple terms, explaining concepts such as derivatives, bank holding companies, market risk and counterparty risk. It covers a lot of ground — the creation of a superhighway of risk, political donations to leadership of both parties, how derivatives weave the biggest banks together and the silencing of the credit experts.

Now that the book is published, I am devoting my time to market events and to financial reform. Although I published volumes of research at Moody’s and now this book, this is my first experience with a blog. I’m climbing that learning curve. So I apologize for any technical glitches and for what some may see as a lack of finesse. I will be more into content than appearance because that is the value I want to share with my readers — those who like me are engaged in shaping a truly capitalistic financial market to support a vibrant economy.