The Great Read-cession, Part X

We’re done with the book reviews, but John S isn’t done breaking down the books of the financial crisis. We still have a few things left to cover, most importantly….

The Whole Truth…

Rankings!

Obviously I wasn’t going to read 16 books and NOT rank them.

It was a little hard to determine the criteria. Some of the books were well-written, but not especially good at delving into the causes; others were thorough but boring; some were great but a little off-topic. If someone asked me to recommend one of these books, I wouldn’t answer until I got more information about what exactly she was looking for. If, however, she were somehow unable to clarify, I would recommend them in this order:

16) A Colossal Failure of Common Sense

15) Reckless Endangerment

14) The Quants

13) The Greatest Trade Ever

12) Crash of the Titans

11) On the Brink

10) Bailout Nation

9) Financial Crisis Inquiry Report

8) Confidence Men           

7) House of Cards

6) Griftopia

5) More Money Than God

4) Too Big To Fail

3) The Big Short

2) Bailout

1) All the Devils Are Here

Some Questions, Answered

 So, um, whose fault was it? 

The Great Read-cession, Part IX

We’re wrapping up the financial crisis book reviews with today’s look at two books on the reform efforts that followed the crash of 2008.

Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President

by Ron Suskind, 2011

 

The last two books I read focused mainly on the government’s response to the crisis, as opposed to the crisis itself. Confidence Men, which got a lot of attention when it came out for its revelations of in-fighting in the Obama Administration, showcases Obama’s response to the financial crisis, both as a candidate and as a new president.

As a candidate, of course, the financial crisis and the housing bubble were a boon to Obama. The sluggish economy of President Bush’s last few years helped Obama’s message of change resonate with the electorate, and John McCain’s incoherent response to the crisis—including his assertion that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” on the day Lehman failed—helped doom his campaign.

But once Obama was elected, the crisis became a tremendous albatross. One problem was that while many within the campaign anticipated a crisis of some kind, nobody really expected it to come so fast and be so severe. Suskind details a scene from early in Obama’s campaign—August of 2007—in which Obama’s economic advisers warn him that, as president, he will need to respond to a housing crisis. But they estimated that the crisis would hit in “year two” of an Obama presidency, and it would cost about two million jobs. In reality, of course, it came before Election Day, and ultimately cost about eight million jobs.

The Great Read-cession, Part II

It’s Part II of John’s attempt to read every single book on the financial crisis of 2008. Check out Part I here if you missed yesterday’s introduction. Today we talk about the two most famous books the crisis produced.

Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save The Financial System—And Themselves*

by Andrew Ross Sorkin, 2009

 

*See? I warned you about those subtitles…

The first book I read was probably the most famous book on the subject of the financial disaster. Sorkin’s book was an award-winning best seller, and it was adapted into an HBO film. It also has the most iconic name.

It’s easy to understand why TBTF was such a hit: The book is essentially a thriller, depicting the days and months of greatest turmoil. It’s not so much about the causes of the crisis as it is about the disastrous results.

Sorkin embraces the thriller-quality of his narrative, and he does it very well. The book is excellent at setting scenes and introducing a myriad of characters. His scenes are short—rarely more than two pages long—and colorful, with lots of detail and dialogue. Although there are over 150 people introduced (there is a helpful eight-page Cast List in the front of the book), Sorkin does an excellent job of making them all seem unique—a difficult task, since almost all are rich, middle-aged white guys. He includes just enough backstory to provide context and make them seem like real people, without weighing down his narrative.

The narrative begins in March 2008, with the bailout of Bear Stearns. Sorkin doesn’t spend much time on the specifics of that deal—in which the Fed guaranteed $30 billion of assets in exchange for JP Morgan buying the firm for $2 a share*—but instead focuses on the ripple effect of the deal. There is some irony, of course, in this ripple effect: The main reason the Fed intervened in the Bear Stearns failure was to prevent the failure from infecting other firms. Instead, all the Fed did was replace one ripple effect with another.