Too Big to Fail

Posted on by

Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true behind the scenes, moment by moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego and greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world s economy We ve got to get some foam down on the runway a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the then president of the Federal Reserve of New York, would tell Henry M Paulson, the Treasury secretary, about the catastrophic crash the world s financial system would experience Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail re creates all the drama and turmoil, revealing neverdisclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle This true story is not just a look at banks that were too big to fail, it is a real life thriller with a cast of bold faced names who themselves thought they were too big to fail. Read Too Big to Fail author Andrew Ross Sorkin – kino-fada.fr The only problem with capitalism is all the capitalists Herbert Hoover There s a school of thought out there that many, if not most, people buy into It goes something like this The U.S government is full of a bunch of stupid bureaucrats who do nothing but pass restrictive laws that keep businesses from making money and prevent the growth of the economy Obviously, the businesses should be allowed to do their thing with no government interference because they know what s best, and if they shThe only problem with capitalism is all the capitalists Herbert Hoover There s a school of thought out there that many, if not most, people buy into It goes something like this The U.S government is full of a bunch of stupid bureaucrats who do nothing but pass restrictive laws that keep businesses from making money and prevent the growth of the economy Obviously, the businesses should be allowed to do their thing with no government interference because they know what s best, and if they should happen to step on their dicks, then they should just fail without the government trying to save them To do anything else is socialism That s a nice theory, but there s a huge flaw with it For the most part, a large business is made up of a bunch of short sighted people who will cut their own throats in the long term if it means making money next quarter Don t believe that Enron Worldcom Tyco AIG Bear Stearns Lehman Brothers Etc ...What the financial crisis in the US essentially came down to was the bankers had the government balls in a nice tight wrench and if those balls got gangrene and dropped off, leaving the whole of the Western world without a banking system and the ensuing anarchy, they couldn t care less because they were filthy rich anyway and would, personally, all of them bethan just all right Skip to the last but two paragraph if you don t want the lead up to how.How it works, in a simplified way the What the financial crisis in the US essentially came down to was the bankers had the government balls in a nice tight wrench and if those balls got gangrene and dropped off, leaving the whole of the Western world without a banking system and the ensuing anarchy, they couldn t care less because they were filthy rich anyway and would, personally, all of them bethan just all right Skip to the last but two paragraph if you don t want the lead up to how.How it works, in a simplified way the only way I can grasp it, financial pea brain as I am and leaves out the part insurance companies played is that the banks use their money, our money, our deposits, to make money by lending it out as mortgages and business loans They make money o...If anything else, this is an entertaining book Big tough bankers swear and dick around like petty real estate salesmen from a David Mamet play.It s also a good history of part of the 2007 2009 recession, specifically the collapse and restructuring of the investment banking system Lehman Brothers is gone, Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch, AIG got money from the Fed, and the survivors rest put an emergency fund together, similar to the private response to the crashes of 1907 and 1929 Goldma If anything else, this is an entertaining book Big tough bankers swear and dick around like petty real estate salesmen from a David Mamet play.It s also a good history of part of the 2007 2009 recession, specifically the collapse and restructuring of the investment banking system Lehman Brothers is gone, Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch, AIG got money from the Fed, and the survivors rest put an emergency fund together, similar to the private response to the crashes of 1907 and 1929 Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley said enough to the investment banking business, and became bank holding companies.This book focuses on the executive personalities and...The strength of Sorkin s book, which covers the period right after the fall of Bear Stearns March 2008 , up to the TARP infusions of capital October 2008 , is that he synthesized masses of detailed information and assembled it into a chronological story, using multiple firsthand accounts, contemporaneous journalistic sources, and public records You can imagine him flipping through his enormous Rolodex an inapt 80s allusion, but I like the image , calling every Wall Streeter he s ever spoken The strength of Sorkin s book, which covers the period right after the fall of Bear Stearns March 2008 , up to the TARP infusions of capital October 2008 , is that he synthesized masses of detailed information and assembled it into a chronological story, using multiple firsthand accounts, contemporaneous journalistic sources, and public records You can imagine him flipping through his enormous Rolodex an inapt 80s allusion, but I like the image , calling e...In Too Big to Fail Andrew Ross Sorkin achieved the impossible, he made the 2008 financial crisis accessible to a wide variety of readers His tightly woven and meticulously researched narrative feels like a movie script, which is why it is no surprise that it eventually became one Sorkin does a great job in setting out the circumstances that led to the failure of the banks, and then chronicling almost day by day the decision making process behind the eventual bailout One of the best financial In Too Big to Fail Andrew Ross Sorkin achieved the impossible, he made the 2008 financial crisis accessible to a wide variety of readers His tightly woven and meticulously researched narrative feels like a movie script, which is why i...I don t know if it s fair to rate the book based on the first few chapters that I read, but I know that my rating is going to be the same IF I did finish it I just can t This is NOT a book about the financial meltdown if you want something that explains the crisis, you are better off reading Wikipedia seriously This, however, seemsfiction than nonfiction Seriously Was the author there in the boardroom when the investment bankers and traders barked to each other frantically to sa I don t know if it s fair to rate the book based on the first few chapters that I read, but I know that my rating is going to be the same IF I did finish it I just can t This is NOT a book about the financial meltdown if you want something that explains the crisis, you are better off reading Wikipedia seriously This, however, seemsfiction than nonfiction Seriously Was the author there in the boardroom when ...Finished I imagine this book would be a tough read, since it s pages literally crawl with minor characters bankers, minions of the armies of the night but it makes a good listen Paulson comes off much better than Bernanke or Geithner and the author tries against Taibi to rehabilitate Goldman He makes the case, persuasively, imo against the Vampire Squid conspiracists that the media really didn t and doesn t understand how close Goldman itself came to failing so much f Finished I imagine this book would be a tough rea...So I teach banking law and I assign a bunch of articles and documentaries on the crisis and I lived through it so nothing in here was new, but I wanted to read this after 10 years to see how well the narrative has aged and also because I forgot some of the play by play This hasn t aged all that well because it sof a financial thriller than an analysis It s also so over the top about lionizing some of these big bad macho bankers and policymakers Sorkin seems to have a big crush on Dimon So I te...This was a book I felt like I had to read 539 pages of the blow by blow of the financial crisis Or at least what the crisis looked like from the top It s really the story of what the heads of the biggest financial firms were up to, and the federal regulators mostly the Treasury and the Fed who were trying to prevent the financial sector from collapse.Mostly it just feels like reading about this chaotic charade with a bunch of crazed sleepless CEOs and lawyers and accountants trying to figu This was a book I felt like I had to read 539 pages of the blow by blow of the financial crisis Or at least what the crisis looked like from the top It s really the story of what the heads of the biggest financial firms were up to, and the federal regulators mostly the Treasury and the Fed who were trying to prevent the financial sector from collapse.Mostly it just feels like reading about this chaotic charade with a bunch of crazed sleepless CEOs and lawyers and accountants trying to figure out what deals they should or should not do It s basically the story of the companies in worse shape Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley trying to get one of thehealthy companies JP Morgan, Gold...For the lay person looking to learn the basics about the events that unfolded during the subprime mortgage crisis, I actually recommend the HBO original film based on this book ahead of the book itself Whereas the movie had several illuminating scenes that put the events into vernacular for someone like me, I found that the book was a bit too hard to grasp Not for lack of effort, as Sorkin is not prone to speaking over anyone s head Rather, the material is so dense, and the factors so similar For the lay person looking to learn the basics about the events that unfolded during the subprime mortgage crisis, I actually recommend the HBO original film based on this book ahead of the book itself Whereas the movie had several illuminating scenes that put the events into vernacular for someone like me, I found that the book was a bit too hard to grasp Not for lack of effort, as Sorkin is not prone to speaking over anyone s head Rather, the material is so dense, and the factors so similar derivatives, credit swaps, etc that the book format made it tougher to keep track of what actually happened In the end, I came out the other end wanting to see the movie again to clarify what I had just read.That said, I do think this is an excellent book in several respects One of my favorite aspects of the book is Sorkin s obvious fascination with the back stories of the high powered executives at these banks I was intrigued to learn just how many of the CEOs, CFOs, and CO...

Too Big to Fail
  • English
  • 11 October 2017
  • Hardcover
  • 600 pages
  • 0670021253
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin
  • Too Big to Fail