When the great financial boom that has made the past decade such a pleasant time to live in finally hit the buffers, it was no surprise that hundreds of thousands more readers would turn up on the business pages looking for some kind of explanation. Here are the ten stories that most interested readers in The Year It All Went Wrong:

1 50 billion at stake after Wall St broker Bernard Madoff is arrested over worlds biggest swindle

An impressive showing for such a recent story. The fraudster who lurked in the great long financial boom was undone by the inevitable bust.

2 Business big shot Arianna Huffington online entrepreneur

News of a planned expansion of America’s most influential political website attracted thousands of Ms Huffington’s many admirers, and a few HuffPo detractors, to Times Online.

3 Macca's divorce lawyer lined up for encore with Madonna

As far back as June talk of the Ritchie demerger was surfacing on our Law pages.

4 Central banks pump in 620bn as shares plummet

As the crunch began to bite deeper we reported on a plan to pump massive amounts of cash into the global banking system in a concerted effort to boost market confidence and inject liquidity into the global markets.

5 Despite the Federal Reserves efforts Wall Street fears a big US bank is in trouble

A prediction of financial woe for Bear Stearns marked another step down the slippery slope.

6 Royal Bank of Scotland under state control

The Chancellor’s injection of £20 billion of taxpayers’ money into Royal Bank of Scotland was the the most dramatic extension of state ownership in the British economy since the war. October was a torrid month for bankers.

7 Nassim Nicholas Taleb the prophet of boom and doom

The writer and lecturer was roundly mocked when he predicted a global financial crisis. They aren’t laughing now.

8 UK living standards outstrip US

In a rare piece of good news (for us Brits anyway) living standards in Britain were set to rise above those in America for the first time since the 19th century. At least they were last January.

9 US banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch reveal fresh 15bn loss

The full scale of the subprime crisis, soon to be a credit crunch and ultimately a recession, began to reveal itself to the world beyond the Wall Street cognoscenti.

10 Microsoft in 20bn Yahoo deal

The on again off again romance between the two computer age giants fascinated business brains and computer geeks in November.