The End of Wall Street
by By Lowenstein, Roger
Category: Business & Economics , Investments & Securities , General

Watch a Video                                 Download the cheat sheet for Roger   Lowenstein's The End of Wall Street »   The roots of the mortgage bubble and the story of the Wall Street collapse-and the government's   unprecedented response-from our most trusted business journalist. The End of Wall   Street is a blow-by-blow account of America's biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression. Drawing   on 180 interviews, including sit-downs with top government officials and Wall Street CEOs, Lowenstein tells, with   grace, wit, and razor-sharp understanding, the full story of the end of Wall Street as we knew it. Displaying   the qualities that made When Genius Failed a timeless classic of Wall Street-his sixth sense for narrative   drama and his unmatched ability to tell complicated financial stories in ways that resonate with the ordinary reader-  Roger Lowenstein weaves a financial, economic, and sociological thriller that indicts America for succumbing to the   siren song of easy debt and speculative mortgages. The End of Wall Street is rife with historical   lessons and bursting with fast-paced action. Lowenstein introduces his story with precisely etched, laserlike profiles   of Angelo Mozilo, the Johnny Appleseed of subprime mortgages who spreads toxic loans across the landscape like   wild crabapples, and moves to a damning explication of how rating agencies helped gift wrap faulty loans in the   guise of triple-A paper and a takedown of the academic formulas that-once again- proved the ruin of investors and   banks. Lowenstein excels with a series of searing profiles of banking CEOs, such as the ferretlike Dick Fuld of   Lehman and the bloodless Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, and of government officials from the restless, deal-obsessed   Hank Paulson and the overmatched Tim Geithner to the cerebral academic Ben Bernanke, who sought to avoid a   repeat of the one crisis he spent a lifetime trying to understand-the Great Depression. Finally, we come   to understand the majesty of Lowenstein's theme of liquidity and capital, which explains the origins of the crisis and   that positions the collapse of 2008 as the greatest ever of Wall Street's unlearned lessons. The End of Wall   Street will be essential reading as we work to identify the lessons of the market failure and start to reb...