Michael Lewis: Wall Street Collapse A Story Of 'Mass Delusion' (VIDEO)

It may be tempting to think Wall Street is full of criminals who got off easy during the financial crisis.

But bestselling author Michael Lewis cautions against such an easy conclusion.

"I think the story is much more interesting than that," he said during an interview on CBS's 60 Minutes. "I think it's a story of mass delusion."

The former bond trader is releasing a book this week called The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. According to CBS, the result of his 18-month investigation attempts to explain, "how some of Wall Street's finest minds managed to destroy $1.75 trillion of wealth in the subprime mortgage markets."

Lewis told the network, "The incentives for people on Wall Street got so screwed up, that the people who worked there became blinded to their own long term interests. And because the short term interests were so overpowering. And so they behaved in ways that were antithetical to their own long term interests."

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