Fault Line LedgerCase Files · Volume 1
$63.4 billion in assets, gone in seven weeks. The whole book is $17.
Research dossiers on 20 company collapses, from Enron to WeWork, each with the timeline, the key numbers, the turning point and the sources. 58 pages you can reread and check.
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A letter from the desk
You know the feeling. Forty minutes of footage, a dramatic soundtrack, a founder in a courtroom sketch, and the credits roll before anyone explains what actually broke. The comments under these videos say it better than I can:
"The mark-to-market explanation was the clearest part for me."A viewer, on the one part of an Enron video that explained the numbers
"How many other Enrons are there now?"A viewer, asking the question nobody answers
Here's what I've learned from reading what dead companies leave behind. They rarely die from one scandal. The numbers turn first, usually the profit on each sale or the debt, and everyone ignores them until the story breaks.
So I put twenty collapses in one book, laid out the same way every time: the dates, the four numbers that matter, the day it became impossible to ignore, the one mechanic you need, and the number in the filings that turned first. Then one check you can run today on any company.
A free lesson from the book
Silicon Valley Bank held US Treasury and agency bonds, about the safest things money can buy. It failed on March 10, 2023. Here's the same bank seen two ways.
Deposits tripled, from about $62 billion at the end of 2019 to about $189 billion at the end of 2021. Loans mostly fine. A big pile of government bonds, labeled "held to maturity". It looks rich and careful.
The footnote in the 2022 annual report:
Valued at market prices, the cushion was nearly gone months before the run.
Why the headline missed it: when rates rise, old low-rate bonds fall in price. Labeling them "held to maturity" lets a bank keep them at cost and push the loss into a footnote, on the promise it'll never have to sell. The promise only holds while depositors stay. More than 90% of SVB's deposits sat above the $250,000 insured limit, and on March 9 customers asked for $42 billion back.
That's one of the nineteen checks in the book, each learned from a real collapse.
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What's inside
Every case has the same seven pieces, so you can compare any two companies side by side: the opener, the moment, four key numbers, a dated timeline, the turning point, one mechanic explained plainly, and "Read the drawer", the number that turned first.
Where the reported numbers and the real ones parted ways.
Borrowed money, short funding or a buyout set the clock running.
The market moved and the company stayed put, or cut the wrong thing.
Real pages from the book
Who made this
I host Fault Line Ledger, where I read company filings out loud and explain where it really went wrong. I believe the cause is in the filings before it's in the news, and that anyone who can read a bank statement can read a balance sheet if someone explains it plainly.
Volume 1, first edition. Facts checked November 6, 2026.
Questions
No. The documentaries tell the drama. Each file here is the cause: the dated timeline, four key numbers, the turning point, the mechanic behind it and the sources, so you can check every claim yourself.
No. Every term is explained the first time with an everyday example, like a phone bill or renting back your own house, and all 18 are collected in one glossary at the back.
No, and that's on purpose. It gives you nineteen checks that turned up before real collapses, so you can run them yourself on any company you own or work for.
You download a 58-page PDF right after paying. It's laid out at a book page size that reads well on phones, tablets and laptops, and prints cleanly.
All sales are final. This is a digital download you get right away, so we don't offer refunds. This doesn't affect any rights you have by law. The free lesson, the contents and six real pages are on this page so you can check before buying.
Take the free Old Price Fixer, a one-page sheet for adjusting any old share price after reverse splits and bankruptcies.
Twenty collapses, the numbers that turned first, and the checks to spot them yourself.
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The full kit
Case Files Volume 1, the Red Flags Spreadsheet, both add-ons, plus a kit-only set of 20 filled-in spreadsheet walkthroughs that show the red flags in each Case Files company's own filings before the fall.
$67See the kit
A spreadsheet that walks you through a public company's filings on debt, cash burn and insider sales, with each check matched to the case where it mattered.
$37See it
A checklist of 12 warning signs, each tied to the real case, date and source where it appeared before the company went under.
FreeGet it free