With $3.2 billion in debt, the county that is home to Alabama's largest city is about to go bust. How the credit crisis went South. Bob Riley wanted to help. It was Sunday, Oct. 5, and the Alabama governor was on the phone with Neel Kashkari, a Treasury Department official who the next day would be named by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson as interim leader of the government's just-approved $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. But Riley couldn't wait for Kashkari's role to become official. He needed to impress upon the new bailout boss the seriousness of the exploding financial...