* There is some dispute about the conversations between Hubler and Cruz. The version of events offered by people close to Zoe Cruz is that she was worried about the legal risk of doing business with Bear Stearns's troubled hedge funds, and that Hubler never completely explained the risk of triple-A-rated CDOs to her, and led her to believe that Morgan Stanley stood no chance of suffering a huge loss--probably because Hubler himself didn't understand the risk. Hubler's friends claim that Cruz seized effective control of Hubler's trade and prevented him from ditching some large chunk of his triple-A CDOs. In my view, and in the view of Wall Street traders, Hubler's story line is far less plausible. "There's no fucking way he said, 'I have to get out now' and she said no," says one trader close to the situation. "No way Howie ever said, 'If we don't get out now we might lose ten billion dollars.' Howie presented her with a case for not getting out." The ability of Wall Street traders to see themselves in their success and their management in their failure would later be echoed, when their firms, which disdained the need for government regulation in good times, insisted on being rescued by government in bad times. Success was individual achievement; failure was a social problem.