The current economic climate has left nobody untouched. Rich, middle class and especially the poor, have seen a tremendous loss of wealth the world has never seen. High unemployment, national budget deficits, loss of social safety nets and the political bickering over them, are the constant talk on the 24-hour cable news cycle A never ending stream of negative reports and pessimistic outlooks coming from the media can put a damper on anybody. Having personally seen the toll the mortgage bust has taken on many around me, I became very interested in the reasons for the credit crisis and subsequent economic contraction. I have realized that most people who have been greatly affected don’t fully understand the reasons behind their economic woes. Most people reduce the problem to a few arguments that usually line up with their ideology. I read this fascinating book, and I find it very relevant three years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the worldwide crisis that ensued.
This book is not for your typical ideologue, for it will challenge commonly held views about the events leading up to the TARP bailout. It doesn’t take sides or make arguments for one thing or the other. It does tell the story from an insider’s perspective. The author uses his incredible deep connection to the financial world and pieces together thousands of reports, interviews and information collected from sources in an easy to read yet incredibly detailed fashion. What this book lacks is all the media noise and the punditry that dumbs down our national discourse. It’s easy to discount the key players in the story as elitist bankers and plutocrats; but each dialogue reveals the humanity behind every decision, and the mighty struggle to avoid a calamity of proportions never seen by modern society. What I can take from this book, is a reaffirmation that a seemingly complex and hard to understand financial world, proved to be just that: A behemoth that even the very bankers involved failed to comprehend; blinded by the allure of exorbitant profits and a sense of invincibility caused an epic fail from which we are still struggling to recover. I highly recommend this book. For some background information, make sure you are familiar with key concepts, such as: financial derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, Credit Default Swaps, Investment versus Commercial banking, credit rating agencies, and the role of the Federal Reserve.
