Matematicas Aplicadas

This book is the product of more than fiv e hundred hours of interviews with more than two

hundred individuals who participated directly in the events surrounding the financial crisis. These individuals include Wall Street chief executives, board members, management teams, current and former U.S. government officials, foreign government officials, bankers, lawyers, accountants, consultants, and other advisers. Many of these individuals shared documentary evidence, including contemporaneous notes, e-mails, tape recordings, internal presentations, draft filings, scripts, calendars, call logs, billing time sheets, and expense reports that provided the basis for much of the detail in this book. They also spent hours painstakingly re- calling the conversations and details of various meetings, many of which were considered privileged and confidential.

Given the continuing controversy surrounding many of these events—several criminal in- vestigations are still ongoing as of this writing, and countless civil lawsuits have been filed—most of the subjects interviewed took part only on the condition that they not be identi- fied as a source. As a result, and because of the number of sources used to confirm every scene, readers should not assume that the individual whose dialogue or specific feeling is re- corded was necessarily the person who provided that information. In many cases the account came from him or her directly, but it may also have come from other eyewitnesses in the room or on the opposite side of a phone call (often via speakerphone), or from someone briefed dir- ectly on the conversation immediately afterward, or, as often as possible, from contemporan- eous notes or other written evidence.

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