How I Caused the Credit Crunch

How I Caused the Credit Crunch

This is a vivid and personal account of 21st century banking excess. “How I Caused the Credit Crunch” traces seven years at the forefront of the credit markets - a tale from the heart of the bewildering banking maelstrom whose catastrophic collapse has plunged the world towards the worst recession since the 1930s. Tetsuya Ishikawa’s story reveals how a young Oxford graduate finds himself in command of vast sums of other people’s money; how a novice to the mysteries of hedge funds, subprime mortgages and CDOs can fix complex deals for billions of dollars in the exclusive bars, brothels and trading floors of London, New York, Frankfurt and Tokyo, and reap the benefits in a colossal annual bonus and an international luxury lifestyle. Ishikawa’s book, which deftly explains the arcane financial instruments now grimly associated with the credit crunch, is both a powerful tale of lost innocence and an expose of the disturbing truth of the collective folly, frailty and greed at the heart of the banking crisis.

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A Random Walk Down Wall Street Completely Revised and Updated Edition

A Random Walk Down Wall Street Completely Revised and Updated Edition

It’s unlikely that you’ll spot many dog-eared copies of A Random Walk floating amongst the Wall Street set (although bookshelves at home may prove otherwise). After all, a “random walk”–in market terms–suggests that a “blindfolded monkey” would have as much luck selecting a portfolio as a pro. But Burton Malkiel’s classic investment book is anything but random. Since stock prices cannot be predicted in the short term, argues Malkiel, individual investors are better off buying and holding onto index funds than meddling with securities or actively managing mutual funds. Not only will a broad range of index funds outperform a professionally managed portfolio in the long run, but investors can avoid expense charges and trading costs, which decrease returns.

First published in 1973, this seventh printing of a A Random Walk looks forward and does so broadly, examining a new range of investment choices facing the turn-of-the-century investor: money-market accounts, tax-exempt funds, Roth IRAs, and equity REITs, as well as the potential benefits and pitfalls of the emerging global economy. In his updated “life-cycle guide to investing,” Malkiel offers age-related investment strategies that consider one’s capacity for risk. (A 30-year-old who can depend on wages to offset investment losses has a different risk capacity from a 60-year-old.) In his assessment of rocketing Internet stocks, Malkiel defends his “random” position well, explaining how “the market eventually corrects any irrationality–albeit in its own slow, inexorable fashion. Anomalies can crop up, markets can get irrationally optimistic, and often they attract unwary investors. But eventually, true value is recognized by the market, and this is the main lesson investors must heed.” Written for the financial layperson but bolstered by 30 years of research, A Random Walk will help individual investors take charge of their financial future. Recommended. –Rob McDonald

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars a must read
AN UPDATED VERSION OF AN OLD CLASSIC.

A ‘MUST READ’ FOR ANY SERIOUS OR CASUAL

INVESTOR.

5 Stars One of the Few Investment Books Worth Your Time & Money
Especially in these tumultuous economic times, you owe it to yourself to read this book! My first accountant taught me that, “No one cares as much about your money as you do.” This book teaches you how to manage it yourself, saving thousands of dollars of fees to investment advisers who often have their own interests ahead of yours.

This book changed my life. And I can’t say that about many books.

-Steve Parker, M.D., author of The Advanced Mediterranean Diet: Lose Weight, Feel Better, Live Longer

5 Stars investment essential
A comprehensive investment book that is chock full of advice on how to develop a successful long term investment strategy. The advice is timeless and is pertinent to the present uncertainty in the financial markets. Read it and sleep better.

5 Stars Great Book
This is a very complete and good book. It covers the basic topics of finance related to shares.

5 Stars This may be the last investing book you will need to read
Have you ever wondered about how to correctly invest your money? Do you like to understand things from first principles? If so, this book is for you. This book will teach you what to do with your money and, more importantly, why. This book explains everything from first principles, so no background knowledge is needed. The author takes time to explain all the latest money making inventions such as modern portfolio theory and others only to discredit them later with logic and statistical evidence. I found these later chapters a little hard to read because the author is so pedantic and material is a little anticlimactic. However, I think I’ve learned a lot from these chapters. If you would prefer a shorter summary for how to invest without detailed explanations for why, read The Random Walk Guide to Investing: Ten Rules for Financial Success instead.

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Tuxedo Park A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

Tuxedo Park A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

This must have been an extremely difficult book to write. Its subject, Alfred Loomis, never gave interviews during his lifetime and destroyed all his papers before his death. “Few men of Loomis’ prominence and achievement have gone to greater lengths to foil history,” writes author Jennet Conant. Had he not done these things, his name would be better known–and this probably wouldn’t be the first biography about him. So who was Alfred Loomis? “He was too complex to categorize–financier, philanthropist, society figure, physicist, inventor, amateur, dilettante–a contradiction in terms,” writes Conant. Loomis established a private laboratory in New York and hired scientists whose work in the 1930s wound up making possible both the radar and the atomic bomb. These developments were essential to Allied victory in the Second World War. Conant is perhaps the only person who could have pierced Loomis’s obsessive secrecy and written this book; she grew up with Loomis’s children and other members of his family. Her grandfather, Harvard president James Bryant Conant, was one of Loomis’s scientists. Tuxedo Park is an important book about the development of military technology in the United States; admirers of The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes and similar titles won’t want to miss it. –John Miller

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Steven Winkler’s review of Jennet Conant’s Tuxedo Park
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RJ1HH3ZT15PGU Steven Winkler’s review was made as part of a critical review assignment for the Fall 2008 Economics of Entrepreneurship seminar at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, taught by Art Diamond. (The course syllabus stated that part of the critical review assignment consisted of the making of a video recording of the review, and the posting of the review to Amazon.)

5 Stars Stories you should know from WWII era
This book truly occupied my mind from an era that I lived through. I have recommended this book to a number of friends. Well done and a story that is truly amazing.

5 Stars What an amazing book
Being a very big history buff, I was shocked to find out about the little-known contribution of a single patriotic individual that totally changed the progress of the war. This book is a must read for all! Extremely well written to entice the reader and present the facts; personal as well as historical.

5 Stars Achievement with a Capital “A”?
Having been a Radarman in the Vietnam War, I found the gensis of radar and the man responsible for it and many other things in life. Albert Loomis was a giant in the first half of the 20th Century and under the radar. He may have been bigger in the first half of the century than Bill Gates was in the second half. But, you won’t know why until you read the book and understand the magnitude of his impact on America and the World then and now.

5 Stars One of the most important men in US history
Chances are you have never heard of Alfred Loomis before this book but you will not forget him once you have read it. This man is truly one of the most influential people in US history. A modern day renaissance man who made millions in the stock market before 1929 and was a genius scientist who developed modern radar technology. He established a lab at Tuxedo Park where he hosted scientists who would work on a variety of projects. While he was not directly connected to the Manhattan project many of the things worked on at his lab were eventually essential for the project. He worked closely with Vannavear Bush to bring over radar technology that would be invaluable for both sub hunting and eventually air defense in World War 2. This scientist even left his mark in World War 1 helping to develop new ways to fire artillery. If you want an interesting story this is the book for you.

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House of Cards A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street

House of Cards A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street

“Engrossing….[Cohan] gives us in these pages a chilling, almost minute-by-minute account of the 10, vertigo-inducing days that one year ago revealed Bear Stearns to be a flimsy house of cards in a perfect storm….He does a deft job of explicating the underlying reasons that put Bear Stearns in peril in the first place….turns complex Wall Street maneuverings into high drama that is gripping — and almost immediately comprehensible — to the lay reader….riveting, edge-of-the-seat reading”
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Cohan vividly documents the mix of arrogance, greed, recklessness, and pettiness that took down the 86 year old brokerage house and then the entire economy. It’s a page-turner in the tradition of the 1990 Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Heylar, offering both a seemingly comprehensive understanding of the business and wide access to insiders….hard to put down, especially thanks to its dishy, often profane, quotes from insiders” –BusinessWeek

“Masterfully reported….[Cohan] has turned into one of our most able financial journalists….he deploys not only his hands-on experience of this exotic corner of the financial industry but also a remarkable gift for plain-spoken explanation…the other great strength of this important book is the breadth and skill of the author’s interviews…Cohan does a brilliant job of sketching in the eccentric, vulgar, greedy, profane and coarse individuals who ignored all these warnings to their own profit and the ruin of so many others. It’s impossible to do justice to his reportorial detail in a brief review…” – Los Angeles Times

“A riveting blow-by-blow account of the days leading up to the government-backed shotgun wedding (to JPM).” — The Economist

“A masterly reconstruction of Bear Stearns implosion–a tumultuous episode in Wall Street history that still reverberates throughout our economy today….meticulous reporting…..first drafts of history don’t get much better than this” –Bloomberg

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Three Books in One
This is actually three books in one and each are engaging reads. The first is a macro examination of the financial crisis, the second a humorous (but ultimately sad) look at the farcical performance of Bear Sterns’ leadership, and third is an incredibly clear picture of the catalyst for current woes: mortgages and mortgage backed securities.

I hesitated in buying the book thinking it may have been rushed to shelves without proper research, context and the time needed to properly attribute cause and effect. However, Cohan has provided a very complete and disturbing picture.

If only we had listened to Meredith Whitney who tilted at windmills. Giving mortgages to those who should not qualify, securitizing bundles of bad paper, government encouraging the entire process, etc. How could this not be a bubble of epic proportions when the average price for a home in America doubled between 1997 and 2005. The phrase, “lowering standards”, has never had more impact and dire consequences.

5 Stars incredible!
this is really an incredible piece of literature…spells out exactly what happened with one of the oldest, largest brokerage firms in the us.

great read for anyone with an interest in finance or the current state of the economy

5 Stars Excellent Read
Up to date with recent developments showing the almost instant evaporation of one of the big Wall Street firms. Recommended.

1 Star The conspiracy and anarchy nuts are making huge chunk of change off this junk!
Everyone and their mother is a backseat economist these days. The fact is… the average American is the reason for this economic collapse. Politicians and bankers care about the American people, but they get no respect in return. Companies like AIG deserve bailouts… they spend that money on good things like bonuses and building new offices with $130,000 carpet!

For ways to enlighten and educate yourself on political issues and economics watch CNN or listen to Rush Limbaugh.

2 Stars A let down!!
I am a wall street buff, and consider reading and keeping up with the market a hobby.This book throws it all at you.Drama,facts that only

a person from Wall Street would understand.The story line is bushed all together, all kind of things are happenibg simultaneously.The story line is not laid out in a way you can keep up what is going on.Extremely disappointed, this could have been a good read.

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Dear Mr Buffett What An Investor Learns 1 269 Miles From Wall Street

Dear Mr Buffett What An Investor Learns 1 269 Miles From Wall Street

Morgan Stanley’s David M. Darst on Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street

In 14 Chapters, 265 pages, and 443 footnotes drawing upon 119 sources, structured finance and derivatives consultant and expert witness Janet M. Tavakoli writes about her “meeting with Warren Buffett on the eve of the greatest market meltdown in history” and how meeting him subtly changed the way she looks at global financial markets.

But Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street is much more than a personal investing bildungsroman. The book is so loaded with lessons, warnings, admonishments, and recommendations that readers will find themselves copiously underlining the text and filling the margins with stars, checkmarks, and exclamation points. Dear Mr. Buffett is wide ranging and hard hitting, written with humility, great specificity, honesty, humanity, and historical awareness.

Captious (or offended) readers may criticize the book as: too harsh in parts; overly broad-brush in its treatment of micro and macro events; and possibly bordering on solipsism when Tavakoli frequently cites her own articles, letters, e-mail exchanges, telephone conversations, and television appearances. Serious financial debacles in the post-Millennium years have left plenty of blame to be apportioned among firms, regulators, the financial system, and let’s face it, human nature, and though polite and deferential, Tavakoli (called by Business Week “the Cassandra of credit derivatives”) is not reticent. At times, her tone can be Biblically prophetic.

That said, Dear Mr. Buffett is worth its weight in gold for two main reasons. First, the timeless investment lessons laced throughout the book. To cite a few:

Warren does not rely on a price because that is what you pay. He relies on value because that is what you get (page 23).

The five most dangerous words in business may be “Everybody else is doing it” (page 38).

Janet Tavakoli’s Theory of Everything in Finance: The value of any financial transaction is based on the timing of cash flows, the frequency of cash flows, the magnitude of cash flows, and the probability of receipt of those cash flows (page 69).

One of Warren Buffet’s core principles: Don’t lend money to people who can’t pay you back. If you do not understand something, do not invest (page 105).

The fraud triangle: need, opportunity, and the ability to rationalize one’s behavior (page 199).

Second, the book contains lucid, lapidary descriptions of options backdating (Chapter 3); mortgages (Chapter 5); complex structured products, securitizations, and off-balance sheet vehicles (Chapter 7); and the perils of leverage and the developments leading to the difficulties at Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and other financial enterprises (Chapters 8 and 9).

Parts of the book read like replaying a YouTube video of a hurricane. Whether or not you agree with Tavakoli in all cases on the details and/or her approach, what comes through in every sentence is her conviction and courage in recounting what happened and her creativity and concretization in proposing safeguards and solutions. In the Preface, she says she is “still learning,” and the financial realm stands the richer from her energy, discernment, persistence, erudition, curiosity, insight, and human empathy.

Read this book as soon as you can. As Warren Edward Buffett has said, “Janet Tavakoli should have been listened to much more carefully in the past… and will be in the future.”

David M. Darst is a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley. He serves as Chief Investment Strategist of the firm’s Global Wealth Management Group and is the Chairman of the Asset Allocation Committee. Darst is also the founding president of the Morgan Stanley Investment Group. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 1996, he was with Goldman Sachs for over twenty years, where he served as a senior executive in the Equities Division. Darst is often quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times, among others. He is also a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, and FOX News. He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and received a BA in economics from Yale University. Darst is a CFA charterholder.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars The Sub-Prime Crisis: The Good, The Bad, and The Guilty
Janet Tavakoli, a well-known expert in the world of credit derivatives and structured products (yes, those toxic assets) has written a remarkably entertaining and insightful book in which she combines Mr. Buffett’s wisdom and advice with her own views about the credit crisis. Tavakoli’s previous books, all about highly technical topics, allowed her to show only one set of skills, albeit an important one: her ability to explain technical issues in an accessible manner. In Mr. Buffett, however, a book for the general public that contains no formulas or equations, she demonstrates that she can write not only with clarity but with wit. Her prose is agile and precise, and her words punch her victims always fatally, and not once, but just in case, many times. Hints of this refreshing style were somehow present, although not totally in the open, in her previous book (Structured Finance & Collateralized Debt Obligations). Despite the subject matter she managed to include comments about triboluminescense, sexual positions, and the Nogorno-Karabakh dispute while making reference to characters as diverse as Michael Moore, Richard Feynman, Shakespeare and Paul Marcinkus.

Mr. Buffett started with an invitation by The Sage of Omaha to Tavakoli in June 2005 (”Be sure to stop by if you are ever in Omaha and want to talk credit derivatives”) after she had mailed him a copy of her latest derivatives book. Knowing that she would never have any reason to be near Omaha, Tavakoli volunteered a few days to visit. Shortly thereafter, she flew from Chicago (where she lives) to have lunch with Mr. Buffett in a place “with no d

Liars Poker Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street

Liars Poker Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street

As described by Lewis, liar’s poker is a game played in idle moments by workers on Wall Street, the objective of which is to reward trickery and deceit. With this as a metaphor, Lewis describes his four years with the Wall Street firm Salomon Brothers, from his bizarre hiring through the training program to his years as a successful bond trader. Lewis illustrates how economic decisions made at the national level changed securities markets and made bonds the most lucrative game on the Street. His description of the firm’s personalities and of the events from 1984 through the crash of October 1987 are vivid and memorable. Readers of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities ( LJ 11/15/87) are likely to enjoy this personal memoir. BOMC and Fortune Book Club selection.
- Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Acad . Lib., West Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars They made the mortgage backed securities
Michael Lewis’ story of investment banking in the 1980s deserves it classic status.

He writes about the investment bank Salomon Brothers from 1980 to 1987. The first years of Lewis’ (nonfictional) story the bank does tremendously well, growing to the largest investment bank on Wall Street.

This fantastic growth is due mostly to the bond trading department. The new monetary policy paradigm, introduced by Fed chairman Paul Volcker, means interest rates vary wildly. That opens the door to trading opportunities.

In 1979 Lew Ranieri is made head of the mortgage operations of Salomon. He hardly makes any money before the Congress gives tax incentives to the savings and loans, if they sell their mortgages, in 1981. The development of the mortgage securities market is vividly described, and very interesting to read today.

From 1985, Salomon gets into trouble. The cunning Michael Milken makes junk bonds the new fad, and steals customers and traders away from Salomon.

Michael Lewis, the author, quits in 1988, and that ends the book. Salomon goes on until it is acquired by Travelers and then Citigroup in 1998.

Liar’s Poker is easy and fun to read, despite being accurate and rather specific on many issues of bond trading. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the development of modern finance. It made me understand the crisis of 2009 better.

4 Stars Peeling a Banana
I am only half the way through the book and I have learned more about trading than the past 20 years. Like everyone I believed in the orderliness of the market. This book gives you great insight into the large trading companies like Salomon Brothers and the practices of the mortgage market. You will walk away with your head shaking. Incredible book.

Marty Lenow

5 Stars Informative and entertaining
Great read and good inside look at Wall Street in the 1980s. Haivng just finished Barbarians at the Gate (which I also highly recommend), I was searching for a similar read. An attorney for the RJR Special Committee recommended Liar’s Poker as a great view inside. He was dead on.

4 Stars First-ever financial thriller - Historic
Liar’s Poker goes down in history as the first-ever “high financial thriller” of the non-fiction variety. The first fiction thrillers were Zero Coupon (1993) by Paul Erdman and my own Lost Trust: The Great Credit Crisis (see 25-Feb-09 PR: http://www.mmdnewswire.com/book-lost-trust-author-lang-gibson-4662.html). When just a kid in college, I remember my godfather giving Liar’s Poker to me for Christmas, and it was the book that first got me excited to work in the institutional bond side of the business (1990-2008). Despite Michael’s brilliant marketing abilities and warnings about Wall Street greed (as well as my own efforts to warn the relevant parties about subprime CDOs), we are now sadly witnessing the quick evaporation of Lewis’s bond business (along with the economy). Some forces are too powerful to override.

While Liar’s Poker does not explain brilliant things about Wall Street that you cannot learn from reading the news, it teaches the material in a far friendlier fashion. Lewis is able to translate his fantastic sense of humor onto paper better than most (why he was a good salesman for his short stint at Solly). As for the relevance of the book’s material to the present day, there is a huge difference that many customer reviewers are missing. Lewis wrote about the creation of mortgage-backed securities (MBS), which slice and dice interest-rate-sensitive prepayment-risk. By contrast, subprime ABS tranche out credit risk, a far less forecastable and riskier event, especially with no economic data on national home price declines. Even more, the subprime ABS were packaged into my product, subprime ABS CDOs. That extra leverage from the extra layer of securitization (and the higher risk from subprime defaults vis-a-vis prepayment risk) was the medicine it took - along with absent regulation, where the Govt feigned the opposite - to blow it all up.

5 Stars This explains a lot!
This is a prophetic story. Michael Lewis is a gifted writer. The ethos of our "credit society" is revealed, in no uncertain terms. A must read for all.

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The Wall Street Journal Guide to Starting Your Financial Life

The Wall Street Journal Guide to Starting Your Financial Life

Your Road to Lifelong Financial Independence

It’s about time you felt empowered to better manage your money because–in tough economic times more than ever–your financial freedom depends on making smart choices. But it’s hard to know where to begin, especially when you’re just starting out. And of course, it only gets more complicated as you go through life: How do you establish good credit? Do you buy or rent? What kinds of health coverage do you really need? How do you actually stay afloat in an uncertain market?

The Wall Street Journal Guide to Starting Your Financial Life gets you off on the right financial foot, from tackling everyday choices like cell-phone plans and pet ownership to big decisions such as smart investment strategies and buying a car or a house. You’ll learn:

• How to open your first checking and savings accounts, get your first credit card, and establish good credit
• The ins and outs of starting a job, including information about taxes, choosing health insurance options, and saving for retirement
• How to budget for big purchases and expenses, such as paying off student loans, buying a car, and affording your housing
• Strategies for buying the little things you want and need without going broke
• The basics of investing, how to manage an inheritance, and the documents you need to protect your assets

This valuable resource puts you in the driver’s seat, so you will be in control of your money and on your way to achieving lifelong financial independence across any economic terrain.

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The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time and How to Survive It

The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time and How to Survive It

We’re in the midst of the greatest financial crisis of our time. Do you know what really happened? Are you prepared for what’s to come?

When every headline delivers bad news, and each morning market bell seems to usher in yet another bank debacle, stock market plunge or dire warning about the end of access to credit; threats to our savings and security; and the collapse of the entire financial system as we know it. . . . It’s hard to keep up.

But we can’t afford to be in the dark just because we can no longer bear to turn on the news.

Written by seasoned financial writer Dave Kansas, The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It makes sense of the madness, revealing how the crisis is affecting our financial lives and what steps we should take to inform and protect ourselves. This comprehensive, practical and accessible book delivers:

• An inside look at the financial wizardry, easy money and overconfidence that drove the subprime crisis, credit crunch and market meltdown
• An analysis of the New World Order—the banking behemoths, the government’s role—and how it will affect Main Street
• A look at what’s safe: a rundown of which investments are protected and which aren’t and how fund protection has changed
• Individual investor strategies: stocks, bonds, retirement and real estate (and whether you should think seriously about “the mattress”)

From the most authoritative source for business and economic news and written by one of the most trusted voices in financial reporting, The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It is the only book you’ll need to navigate the storm ahead.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars A History of how we got into this mess
This book is a pretty concise history of the events leading up to and including the current financial mess. A good read if you really want to understand the history of the situation, but don’t look for much substance on how to deal with the situation with regard to your portfolio - there are much better books in that regard.

5 Stars Excellent !!!!!!!!!!!!
Best, most concise and easy to read book dealing with the reasons for the financial crisis and what to do about, without bias and all the political crap that sometimes gets mixed in.

Truly a great book and a must read.

4 Stars Bringing clarity to chaos and complexity
If you’re still not sure what happened, how we got here, what to expect, and where to turn, it’s doubtful you’ll find a saner, more concise and user-friendly book than this. The author makes brief references to the growing importance of the stock market in the ’80s and ’90s, bringing with it more and more derivatives, securitizing, and schemes for extracting money from debt. But primarily the focus is exclusively on this millennium, from the collapse of Worldcom to the failure of financial institutions, one by one–Lehman, AIG, Bear Stearns, etc.

Practically all of the terms that have been in the news during the last half of 2008 are rehearsed and explained along with profiles of some of the chief players in this drama, from Alan Greenspan to Robert Shiller to Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, and even Warren Buffett.

What may surprise some readers is that the author makes no references to political parties or to U.S. Presidents. Nor, for that matter, is space allotted to “Dow talk,” the stock market averages that seem to be the constant obsession of most financial news commentators and networks. Nor is there any melodramatic handwringing over some socialist/communist path the more outrageous talking heads have accused the political bad guys of leading us down. It’s clear that the author, David Kansas, does not confuse the fortunes of Wall Street with the economy or link Presidential politics with a world-wide phenomenon that’s far beyond the provocations or solutions of a political party let alone a single individual.

The author manages to play an even hand, basically sticking to the “objective facts” yet injecting enough of a personal voice (in the form of the 2nd-person pronoun and question-answer sections) to appeal to a broad cross-section of readers. He offers nothing close to a panacea or rosy outlook and is almost as careful to avoid pressing any panic buttons, though some readers who have tuned in only recently to controversies surrounding the Obama administration’s handling of the crisis may be surprised to learn how dire things had become by September 2008.

He does offer minimal practical advice and guidance to readers of different ages, means, and situations for the new economic realities that, as I write this, are seeming less severe thanks to a 7-day market rally. If, or when, that bubble bursts and we take out yet another low, the book will no doubt seem all the more timely and relevant.

This is certainly not a book for everyone–some will find its coverage scant and limited–too little information about overly familiar material. In fact, most readers should be able to finish the entire volume in several hours (there is no index). The book’s title and length, moreover, are undeniably opportunistic (the contents and style are far more commonsensical and matter-of-fact than the “apocalyptic title” would suggest). But if economics was not your strong suit in school or you were simply inattentive to the meltdown of the past year until recently, this small and focused volume should prove a useful primer.

3 Stars There Is Something In the Woods
A short interesting book with the flavor of fictional stories. However, there is no way to test the credibility of the events and the reader does not know how much of each story is true. Each chapter describes a different incident and in a different location. However, the book is a fun read at bed time and asks some interesting questions about reported strange phenomonen.

5 Stars Making Sense of What Has Happened to Our economy
Great book to read if you want get an understanding of the current state of affairs with our economy. I strongly urge everyone to read the facts and don’t necessarily rely on the hype you get from the main stream media.

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The Match King Ivar Kreuger The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals

The Match King Ivar Kreuger The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals