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The End of Wall Street Audiobook
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(3.03) - 527 listener ratings
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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 rebuild.
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"As always, Lowenstein does an excellent job of explaining difficult to understand financial subjects. If you read only one book about the financial crisis, this should be the one. The only quibble I have with the book is its title. Perhaps it was wishful thinking on the part of the author."
— Jane (5 out of 5 stars)
The End of Wall Street Listener Reviews
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" a near concise yet pragmatic overview of wall street's glut, demise, and eventual bail out "
— Tai, 2/14/2014 -
" Nice intro to who and what they talked about. Interesting history that takes you along a different path to what we all lived through. A little taste of what went on behind the closed doors when wall street was bailed out. Reminded me of how little we were told while it was going on. We really are being kept in the dark. "
— Adrian, 2/6/2014 -
" Third book on our financial crisis I've read. Not as entertaining as the Big Short, but definitely better than the "let's follow bankers as they spend too much time in conference rooms" approach of Too Big to Fail. "
— Mark, 1/18/2014 -
" Best book on the financial meltdown out of the three I have read. Too Big Too fail is from the POV of a journalist and House of Cards is a little better. This book is more of a insiders POV. "
— Johnx, 1/11/2014 -
" This was a good book for understanding just how we got screwed over. "
— Glenn, 11/22/2013 -
" Nothing but a recap of the events of 2008-09 from a Monday Morning quarterbacking perspective - no real substance or analysis of the events. "
— Curt, 11/21/2013 -
" Lowenstein strings along a very compelling narrative which encompasses the whole financial crisis. An overall great read. "
— Stephwaters, 11/5/2013 -
" That Wall Street cannot be reformed. "
— Robert, 9/22/2013 -
" Great book to help people understand why the housing market crashed. "
— Jennifer, 5/8/2013 -
" A fascinating & highly informative look at the collapse of Wall Street. "
— Joseph, 1/8/2013 -
" excellent book about the great recession! "
— Randy, 12/1/2012 -
" Probably the most authoritative account of the GFC so far written... "
— Gekko, 11/22/2012 -
" Very clearly written blow-by-blow of the meltdown. While those chapters describing the events during the crisis are interesting behind the scene looks, the good stuff was up front when he goes through the various causes leading up to the crash. "
— Kevinthorson, 5/29/2012 -
" A big picture look at the 2008 crash. Lowenstein puts the whole process in the perspective of the last 40 years of economic history and then focuses on the dramatic 8 weeks or so in 2008 when Paulson, Bernanke, et. al. worked to save the world's economy. "
— Jim, 1/8/2012 -
" Given the length and focus of this book, it reads like a battle history book, with mostly chronological recounting of the events and the large number of players involved in the recent financial collapse. I appreciated the analysis of how these events marked a major change in how the world operates. "
— Jay, 12/16/2011 -
" Maybe I've just read too many books on the crisis, but this one seemed to do a lot of rehashing without bringing anything new to the table. Less technical than All the Devils and not as exciting as Too Big to Fail. "
— Ethan, 3/24/2011 -
" Great book to help people understand why the housing market crashed. "
— Jennifer, 10/20/2010 -
" That Wall Street cannot be reformed. "
— Robert, 8/26/2010 -
" Given the length and focus of this book, it reads like a battle history book, with mostly chronological recounting of the events and the large number of players involved in the recent financial collapse. I appreciated the analysis of how these events marked a major change in how the world operates. "
— Jay, 8/20/2010 -
" Lowenstein is a great writer and did a good job of balancing careful commentary with excellent reporting. Put together a lot of pieces of the mess that I hadn't understood before. "
— Brian, 6/11/2010 -
" A big picture look at the 2008 crash. Lowenstein puts the whole process in the perspective of the last 40 years of economic history and then focuses on the dramatic 8 weeks or so in 2008 when Paulson, Bernanke, et. al. worked to save the world's economy. "
— Jim, 6/10/2010
About Roger Lowenstein
Janet Lowe is the author of the bestselling Warren Buffett Speaks, Jack Welch Speaks, and Bill Gates Speaks, all from Wiley. Her articles have appeared in such publications as Newsweek, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
About Erik Synnestvedt
Erik Synnestvedt has recorded nearly two hundred audiobooks for trade publishers as well as for the Library of Congress Talking Books for the Blind program. They include The Day We Found the Universe by Marcia Bartusiak, A Game as Old as Empire edited by Steven Hiatt, and Twitter Power by Joel Comm.