Take on the Street: What Wall St. and Corporate America Don't Want You to Know and What You Can Do to Fight Back, published this month by Pantheon Books (Random House), targets small, individual investors, and explains a handful of Wall Street not-so-secret-anymore-secrets, including why Wall Street dislikes full disclosure, and how accountants are involved in the corruption of financial statements.

Overall, the book covers a wide range of topics; Levitt names names and discloses firsthand accounts of boardroom fights in one chapter, then outlines practical advice on how to invest in a 401(k) in another.

Levitt, the longest serving SEC chief in history, has long argued that the conflict of interest that exists with Wall Street analysts should be better exposed. "As long as analysts are paid based on banking deals, there will always be a cloud over what they say," Levitt told a Congressional committee in January, shortly after Enron's collapse.

Levitt is no stranger to the recent high-profile scandals and resulting accounting legislation (Sarbanes-Oxley). While serving his seven years in office he battled the accounting industry on a variety of subjects, such as the conflict of interest present in auditing and consulting services, and the weak Financial Accounting Standards Board that was easily influenced by corporate lobbyists and legislators.

In Take on the Street, Levitt says his "biggest mistake" as SEC chairman was recommending in the early 90's that the FASB back down from a controversial -- and very much political -- decision to expense stock options. (Recent scandals and a call for transparent accounting has brought this issue back up for debate. Just this week the FASB released an exposure draft on stock-based compensation. The proposed changes would provide three methods of transition for companies that voluntarily adopt the fair value method of recording expenses relating to employee stock options.)

"But I also learned my biggest lesson from this back-channel brawl: Accounting firms were passive when it came to standing up for investor interests," Levitt writes. "It wasn't surprising that CFOs would fight for standards that let them understate expenses and exaggerate profits. But I was shocked when I saw how the auditors behaved. They failed to rally to the cause of investors and instead supported the demands of corporate clients. They had become advocates. I would forever look upon the accounting profession differently after this episode."

Since the Enron fiasco, Levitt has made several recommendations on how to clean up the accounting industry that echo his sentiments while he served as SEC chief. Many of his suggestions have since been adopted by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Learn more about Take on the Street or read an excerpt at Pantheon Books' Web site.

For a related story, check out SmartPros' interview with Charles W. Mulford, author of The Financial Numbers Game: Detecting Creative Accounting Practices (a great companion to Take on the Street).

-- Niquette Kelcher

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