Greg Farrell's investigative reporting is the story of the collapse of Merrill Lynch, a company that revolutionized the stock market by building its business on providing financial advice to ordinary citizens. Merrill Lynch, with its “huge herd” of financial advisors, came to personify the American way of thinking. The sudden collapse, decline and sale of Bank of America was a shock. What are the reasons? How did it happen? Based on unique sources from Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, the book tells a story of greed, arrogance and incompetence, revealing the historical sequence of events of the financial crisis.