Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 332
EAN: 9781586486914
ISBN: 1586486918
Label: PublicAffairs
Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: February 09, 2009
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Release Date: February 09, 2009
Sales Rank: 361240
Studio: PublicAffairs

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Now fully updated with the latest financial developments, this is the bestselling book that briefly and brilliantly explains how we got into the economic mess that is the Credit Crunch. With the housing markets unravelling daily and distress signals flying throughout the rest of the economy, there is little doubt that we are facing a fierce recession. In crisp, gripping prose, Charles R. Morris shows how got into this mess. He explains the arcane financial instruments, the chicanery, the policy mis-judgments, the dogmas, and the delusions that created the greatest credit bubble in world history.Paul Volcker slew the inflation dragon in the early 1980s, and set the stage for the high performance economy of the 1980s and 1990s. But Wall Street's prosperity soon tilted into gross excess. The astronomical leverage at major banks and their hedge fund and private equity clients led to massive disruption in global markets. A quarter century of free-market zealotry that extolled asset stripping, abusive lending, and hedge fund secrecy will go down in flames with it. Continued denial and concealment could cause the crisis to stretch out for years, but financial and government leaders are still downplaying the problem. The required restructuring will be at least as painful as the very difficult period of 1979-1983. "The Two Trillion-Dollar Meltdown", updated to include the latest financial developments, is indispensable to understanding how the world economy has been put on the brink.




Rating: - Best synthesis I have seen yet
Friends and colleagues have been asking me repeatedly what is going on. This book helped me give reasonable answers, and I have recommended it to everyone who has asked. Mr. Morris speaks with the authority of an insider and conveys his knowledge in clear, direct language. Don't expect the juicy gossip and anecdotes that some other recent books on this topic have used to entice readers. This book is hard-nosed and business-like. And yet, still eminently readable.

I was trained as ... Read More

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Rating: - A Guided Tour Through Disaster
This is a wonderful book for organizing the unfolding train wreck that is the world economy in late 2008. The author explains what forces led to the situation, how financiers and mathematicians used computer modeling to create complex, world-spanning organizations that led to quick, juicy profits, and how the assumptions upon which these structures were based denied the liklihood of sufficient risk to destroy the whole structure. It is a quick read but heavy on acronyms. I found a second reading helped ... Read More

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Rating: - Fantastic Primer for Beginners
If terms like CDOs, tranches, CDS, LIMBOR, and SIVs throw you for a loop, this is a great book to get up to speed. Charles R. Morris puts the credit crunch in its context in 169 succinct pages. He's a former banker and he doesn't waste your time. Sure, it could have been longer, but then it wouldn't be as easy to read. The scariest thing about this book is it was written BEFORE the panic we are witnessing, but it accurately predicted it. It took the rest of us a lot longer to see the impossible hole we ... Read More

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Rating: - A Page Turner
I just happened to pick up this book at the library, and now I can't put it down. It describes, in a succint and clear manner, exactly how we got into the current financial crisis. I'm recommending it to everyone I know.

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Rating: - Easy to read and understand
I have a business degree, but even I get lost in a sea of economic theories and '50-cent words' when reading about the crisis. This book is in plain english and doesnt try to impress the reader with vocabulary. Easy to understand and a good read.

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