I have not finished reading this book completely, but am at the point in the book where the author expresses a little more opinion then not. In the preceding 19 chapters, however, the author provides a stunningly descriptive and factually accurate portrayal of what lead up to the housing mess and the ensuing bailouts that the author is strongly against. As I have droned on here and MW many times, I had a front row seat for the debacle until the end of 2004. I'm no genius, but by the time I left the bond market, I, and my customers, had absolutely no doubt the blowup was going to come. The only thing I didn't know was how it would actually shake out and which firms would go bankrupt. Though I was too young to remember the bailouts of Lockheed and Continental bank (sorta remember Continental as I lived in Chicago), I definitely remember the S&L debacle and worked with brokers who did business for Long Term Capital. (BTW, I also highly recommend the book, When Genius Failed about THAT fiasco) I watched and felt the effects of deregulation tear through the financial industry and I watched Greenspan endlessly stroke himself on TV only to later admit he "Found a flaw in the model". This book gives a great timeline and though it has a lot of information, it is easy to follow and explains in simple terms what the hell happened.
That I am encouraging you to read this book, of course, implies there is something that appeals to my twisted libtard thinking. And there is. While the author of the book is not in any way making a case against capitalism, he does draw many straight lines from specific deregulations to bank failures that could not have occurred without such deregulation. At one point, he makes the comment that regulation is not aimed at regulating markets, rather it is aimed at regulating the behavior of the participants. While the author is no fan of excessive regulation, he clearly spells out the difference between the push back against excessive regulation in Reagan's day to the completely deregulated casino of today that Wall Street has become. Unlike those of us who like to claim both parties are responsibly while we secretly maintain only one side is to blame, the author makes a pretty concise list of who deserves blame for what and that list is rather lengthy and decidedly bipartisan.
Surely, there are several good books out there on this subject, but none I have seen to date offer such a tight and descriptive timeline and dare I say it, some objectivity. Clearly, this author supports letting bad firms fail and does not favor bailouts. Yet, he also makes a good case of why some regulation is needed and why banks and individuals should not be allowed to leverage themselves so deeply. Which has been something I have harped about for a long time. Anyway, I highly recommend this book to anyone who hates Greenspan and hates Bailouts.
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