Editorial Reviews编辑推荐
From Publishers Weekly
Lowenstein ( When Genius Failed) offers an overview of the causes and consequences of the financial crisis that rises above the glut of similarly themed books with its juicy behind-the-scenes detail and thoughtful analysis. He sets out to prove that the current financial difficulties began long before the summer of 2008, and long before the failure of Lehman Brothers. He begins with the history of Fannie Mae and the rise of mortgage-based securities and a dangerously burgeoning housing bubble, and hits the high points of the 2008-2009 news cycles, including Washington Mutual"s unwise loan strategies, the panic following Bear Stearns"s near-demise, a rash of foreclosures, TARP, and the woes of Citigroup. The insider knowledge lends flavor and context to many of these stories—a ranting Jim Cramer, Ben Bernanke"s loss of confidence, and Alan Greenspan"s astonishing 2008 testimony to Congress. Lowenstein"s strong knowledge of the source material and flair for the dramatic—and doomsday title—should draw readers who still wonder what went wrong and how. (Apr.)
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From Booklist
Lowenstein has written four books on business trends and financial crises and has written for the Wall Street Journal for more than a decade. Although the events leading up to the financial crisis of 2008 have been chronicled from many angles, Lowenstein takes a deeper look at the systemic oversights that led up to that event. The media often blames the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the failure of AIG for the calamity that froze credit markets and ground the economy to a halt, leading to record job losses and the worst downturn since the Great Depression. But the structural damage to the financial system had already been in place by then, brought on by the speculative bubble in real estate nationwide, which was accelerated by lax regulation in subprime mortgages and the securitization of mortgages and endless derivatives, which spread the risk like toxic waste throughout the financial system. Lowenstein does a great job of explaining all this in understandable terms that unobtrusively avoid the injection of emotion and politics. --Courtney Jones
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