The most devastating financial crisis since the Great Depression has cost the jobs, homes and savings of millions of people. In 2008 the US government stepped in to rescue a faltering financial system, propping up some of the largest and most powerful financial firms on Wall Street. Two years later everyone is still wondering what exactly prompted a calamity of such magnitude. To answer this question, US Congress created the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in May 2009 and directed it to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economics crisis in the United States." Lawmakers appointed a 10-member panel with expertise in business, economics regulation and housing to conduct an investigation and then report to the President, the Congress and the American people. Vested with subpoena power, the Commission spent more than a year conducting unprecedented interviews with more than 700 eyewitnesses to the crisis and its aftermath, including current and former government officials, chief executives of the nation's biggest banks, and individuals across the nation who have been affected by the crisis. The Commission examined millions of pages of documents. Many have never before been made available to investigators, journalists or to the public. In addition, it held public hearings in Washington, D.C. and New York City, as well as in communities across America hard hit by the financial crisis. The result is the Commission's revealing and substantive account of the events that led to the most damaging financial earthquake in a generation.