| Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street |  | Author: Andrew Ross Sorkin
Publisher: Allen Lane
List Price: £14.99
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Rating:  36 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.9 x 1.7
ISBN: 1846142385
EAN: 9781846142383
Publication Date: October 29, 2009
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
An account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. It presents the story of some of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego, greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world's economy.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 36
 Gripping account of the response to financial meltdown as it happens August 31, 2010
M. Hillmann (leicester, england)
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and books are normally written with the benefit of hindsight. But this account of the response to the catastrophic events in 2008 of as they unfold, portrays the uncertainty and momentousness of the decisions made on a day to day basis to prevent world financial meltdown. It provides a gripping, page turning read even for someone unfamiliar with Wall Street.
Sorkin touches on the seeds to the disaster - the deregulation of the banks in the late 1990's. the push to increase home ownership which encouraged lax mortgage standards, historically low interest rates. which created the liquidity bubble, and the system of Wall street compensation that rewarded short - term risk taking. They all came together to create the perfect storm.
The account of the battle to save Wall Street interweaves the responses and actions of many of the leading players from Hank Paulson of the US Treasury, Tim Geithner President of the New York Federal Reserve, to CEO's, legal advisors and other key characters in the 9 major banks, and the key insurance and mortgage companies. With the sheer number and complexity of the simultaneous negotiations, this could lead to total confusion, but Sorbin manages to provide a comprehendable picture of this complex situation.
The book portrays the idiosyncracies and personal agendas of the people leading the financial institutions as they respond to the financial hurricane. After the decisions of the Federal officials, Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke, to intervene directly with Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae and their underwriting the toxic assets of Bear Stearns to allow Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan to buy the first investment bank casualty, the pressure was on them not to bail out the fat cat bankers but to allow the market to find a solution to the investment banks' predicaments. When the British FSA refused to allow Barclay to buy Lehmans and expose itself to risk associated with its toxic assets, the deal negotiated by CEO, Bob Diamond, collapsed and Lehman's had to go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This decision was followed by the rescue of AIG by US Federal Bank's underwriting of its merger with the Bank of America.
Sorkin vividly describes the "policy by deal" that followed Lehman's bankruptcy and AIG bail out as the investment banks frantically negotiated major mergers or refinancing deals, often within the space of 24 hours, to avoid running out of cash as the financial system ground to a halt. And he describes Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke's decisions, perhaps belatedly to introduce fiscal measures through TARP, through opening up lines of credit and direct investment by the USA government in the 9 major banks.
The book provides food for thought on whether the battle averted disaster or whether it was a series of decisive but reactive actions.
This book well deserves its shortlisting for the Samuel Johnson non fiction book of the year 2010.
 something missing August 29, 2010
mr badger (Bishop's Stortford, UK)
The book is very readable but the Kindle version (purchased for my iPad) is missing the photographs. Why is the ebook more expensive than the paperback and yet incomplete? If ebooks are the future, publishers need to get their act together and make sure the ebook versions give the reader more not less.
too big to fail August 26, 2010
philtheone
A brilliant read, unusual combination of fact but written like a page turning thriller. Reading today's financial press the main people involved are still there and still earning!
 Too Big to Fail August 5, 2010
will redpath
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Too Big to Fail is incredibly and exhaustively researched account of the efforts to save Lehman Brothers, AIG, and other American financial institutions. In the end however it is far too detailed (for example, rather than simply saying that someone received a phonecall while playing golf Sorkin tells us that it was on the seventh green). One is overwhelmed by details of place of birth, education, family, etc. of the dozens of men (and one notable woman) who were involved.
A lot of interesting facts July 23, 2010
Mr G
Fascinating if you know something of the background and the characters. Sorkin has clearly had access to pretty much everyone. He doesn't go much into the detail of why the crash happened (and when he does dabble in the details of that he sometimes gets it wrong), but as a dramatic description this is hard to beat. By the end, it does start to feel just like a lot of description, and perhaps too many details. I would say though that it is one of the essential books about recent financial history.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 36
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