“I saw how the sausage was made in the economy, and it was really freaky.”

Want to know how Wall Street works--or doesn't? Be sure to check out this riveting piece from Conde Nast Portfolio by Liar's Poker author Michael Lewis about "the end of Wall Street." We can all fantasize:

I had been waiting for the end of Wall Street. The outrageous bonuses, the slender returns to shareholders, the never-ending scandals, the bursting of the internet bubble, the crisis following the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management: Over and over again, the big Wall Street investment banks would be, in some narrow way, discredited. Yet they just kept on growing, along with the sums of money that they doled out to 26-year-olds to perform tasks of no obvious social utility. The rebellion by American youth against the money culture never happened. Why bother to overturn your parents’ world when you can buy it, slice it up into tranches, and sell off the pieces?