Kate Kelly’s insightful story of the collapse of the then fifth largest investment bank in the U.S. is a cautionary tale that points out the systemic risks Wall Street routinely took before the banking system went into the crapper. Kelly’s approach to the Bear Stearns meltdown is by telling the story hour-by-hour as the firm fell off the financial cliff. There are few heroes and many villains here. The pot-smoking, bridge playing Chairman of the Board, Jimmy Cayne, is reminiscent of Nero. Cayne was clearly more interested in competing in bridge tournaments than running a troubled multi-billion dollar investment bank. Kelly explores the culture of greed and risk taking that led to cash shortfalls that resulted in the Bear Stearns failure. Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulsen, and Timothy Geithner of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York don’t cover themselves with glory, either. This whole episode shows how fragile our banking system is and how incompetent oversight can lead to massive losses. Kate Kelly tells her story in clear, no-nonsense prose that cuts through the confusing financial jargon. Highly recommended! GRADE: A-
This is a bigger horror story than King could write. Too scary for me.
The story of the bankruptcy of Bear Stearns isn’t so much scary as it is stupid. All these highly paid executives made bad decision after bad decision. It boggles the mind.
…and were very highly paid for those bad decisions.
I want to read this, but I’l wait for it to show up at the library, I guess.
The NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW had a positive review of STREET FIGHTERS in yesterday’s issue. Kate Kelly did a fine job relating the hour-to-hour drift towards disaster.
This must be popular, or the world reads the website, or both. The library has the book but I’m 14th in the queue for it.
It’s well worth the wait, Rick.