The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission spent more than a year investigating the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. Ultimately, it concluded that this crisis was avoidable. “The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done. If we accept this notion, it will happen again,” it said. During the course of that year-long investigation, the FCIC held 19 hearings and interviewed more than 700 people. Here, we give you a few excerpts — much of it in executives’ own words — from some of those interviews and their thoughts on the crisis and its causes.