If you haven't seen it, the documentary Inside Job is a scathing report on what transpired leading up to the financial crisis. If you watch it, you'll hate pretty much everyone in the financial services industry, if you don't already hate them, that is.
Well I was a financial advisor, interestingly enough, during the crisis, lol. Definitely some interesting times. I recall when Bear Stearns and Lehman went belly up. It was wild.
And people will never really know how close to the brink our country was at the time. Without QE and the bailouts (for whatever they were worth), the run on banks would have been unparalleled.