This is the story of the near market collapse between March 2008 when Bear Stearns was purchased by J.P. Morgan and December 2008 a little after the TARP bailout legislation was enacted. Andrew Ross Sorkin, who is a good New York Times business reporter, tells the story from the perspectives of the bank executives, the leadership at the Treasury, and the heads of the Federal Reserve and the New York Federal Reserve.
If you are in search of an analysis of the causes of the market collapse you will not find it in this book, instead what you will find is a fascinating account of how the bank executives struggled to save their companies and to save their system; how the Treasury and Federal Reserve muddled their way to trying to solve the problem; and how shockingly in denial some of these people were.
The account of the events is pretty objective, it does not make the bank executives into heroes who saved the system rather portrays them as people some of whom were greedy reprehensible jerks while others were decent hard working people. It generally holds the right people accountable, though it could have been harder on a few of the characters involved.
At over 500 pages it is a complete account of the core part of the near system collapse, I would recommend it.
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