If you want a taste of what Wall Street is in for in the new Congress (or what it ought to be in for) then crack open the Pecora Report.

As counsel to the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, Ferdinand Pecora was the man charged with exposing Wall Street’s misdeeds leading up to the Great Depression.

Ron Chernow has an excellent article on Pecora in today’s New York Times.

I have been thinking for some time that Washington needs a new Ferdinand Pecora, so I decided to dig up his original report. It took some doing -- thank you Anna Olson for spending a few hours at the Library of Congress.

But here it is -- the Pecora Report. I've divided it up into four sections because, at a whopping 394 pages, it is a large file to download.

Pecora Report Part 1 (Pages 1-100)
Pecora Report Part 2 (Pages 101-200)
Pecora Report Part 3 (Pages 201-300)
Pecora Report Part 4 (Pages 301-394)

I haven’t gotten through it all, but I like the sections on Excessive Pay (Pages 114 and 205) You could also turn to page 211 for an explanation of how inadequate bank financial statements are. Apparently, there is nothing new under the sun!

Chernow writes about Morgan’s “Preferred List.” You can find that section on page 101.

Enjoy the report. I look forward to reading the sequel.