The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash
by Charles R. Morrisbook data
111 ratings,
3.70
average rating, 52 reviews
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published
March 3rd 2008
by PublicAffairs
binding
Hardcover, 256 pages
isbn
1586485636
(isbn13: 9781586485634)
description
The sub-prime mortgage crisis is only the beginning: A more profound economic and political restructuring is on its way.
We are living in the most re
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avg 3.70
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in May, 2009
Behind the alphabet soup of Wall Street acronyms (CDO, SIV, RMBS), what is it that our great financial engineers actually do? Charles R. Morris understands the process from the inside, brilliantly summarizing the mathed-up hocus-pocus that got us into the current mess. I found this vignette particularly compelling:
"Consider the tale of Travelport, a Web-based reservations company. The Blackstone private equity firm and a smaller partner bought Travelport in August 2006. They ...more
"Consider the tale of Travelport, a Web-based reservations company. The Blackstone private equity firm and a smaller partner bought Travelport in August 2006. They ...more
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Read in January, 2009
*Personal review*
With a release at the beginning of 2008, Morris reviews the current financial crisis and touches on everything from massive inflation, to the proliferation of CDOs (squared and cubed), to the massive leveraging of hedge funds, the reign of investment banks and SIVs and the free-wheeling broker dealers, and the cheating of Americans through horrible mortgage schemes and securitization. Morris also draws parallels to Bretton-Woods (I & the coined II) and shows how thi...more
With a release at the beginning of 2008, Morris reviews the current financial crisis and touches on everything from massive inflation, to the proliferation of CDOs (squared and cubed), to the massive leveraging of hedge funds, the reign of investment banks and SIVs and the free-wheeling broker dealers, and the cheating of Americans through horrible mortgage schemes and securitization. Morris also draws parallels to Bretton-Woods (I & the coined II) and shows how thi...more
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Read in February, 2009
Another quick listen on audible. If you would really like to understand how the credit bubble was formed and why it is now melting down, this is a must-read. Morris simply and clearly explicates the instruments and causes underlying the crisis. Sub-prime mortgages were securitized and then rolled up into bonds where the underlying risk was masked. Greenspan (probably the biggest culprit in all) would pump cash into the economy at the hint of market downturns so that no one believed that thin...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in February, 2009
recommended to Vicki by:
NYT best books of 2008
I loaned this book out already, so I can't quote it at length. The fact that I want to quote it at length should tell you all you need to know. This was a really great, accessible explanation of what the fuck just happened / is happening to the global economy. Morris is smart, pissed, and just the kind of crochety old "In my day..." guy I would want to be in charge of my money, if I had any. I surely wish he'd been in charge of our collective money for the last 20 years.
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Read in January, 2009
recommended to Todd by:
Bartrecommends it for: Everyone
This book more than any other has ruined my "faith" in the infallibility of Capitalism. Morris does fine job of pulling away the curtain and showing the pitfalls of high finance and how those at the top of our financial institutions used this system to transfer its wealth to themselves. He is able to explain esoteric concepts like derivatives in a way that is accessible to laymen and then go on to show how the unrestrained leverage used to invest in them has brought ruin to the syste...more
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Read in February, 2009
recommends it for:
Anyone who is interested in our economy
What an amazing analysis of how the USA got its IOU! Although it was hard for me to remember all the acronyms, I felt inspired and informed as I read this book. It covers the pros and cons of Keynesian liberalism, Reagonomics (the birth of the free market) and government control and offered a lot of detail about how hedge funds work, student loans and the sub prime mortgage situation. I am no expert on economics and I never will be, but books like this help me feel like I have a little more c...more
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Read in November, 2008
recommended to Bart by:
George Sorosrecommends it for: Persons interested in how 9/18/08 happened
This book is an excellent and sophisticated treatment of how we came to the temporary end of the free market on 9/18/08. Charles R. Morris does a fine job of explaining impenetrably difficult derivative vehicles fairly well – or at least as well as can be hoped. Though the writer’s political leanings are pretty obviously to the left of center, they serve to underscore an important truth.
Every American is a free-market capitalist, however much he may have loved the Che Guevara p...more
Every American is a free-market capitalist, however much he may have loved the Che Guevara p...more
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Read in July, 2008
This was a great explanation of how we got ourselves into this credit crisis. It was very thorough and really put our current financial mess into context, coming from someone who had very little idea of what was going on in the banking world. I like his overall premise of a swinging pendulum: the lefty Keynesians got us into our financial crisis of the 70s (embodied by price controls on oil) and since then the Chicago School free market right-wingers got us into the financial crisis we're in n...more
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Read in February, 2009
The author spends a lot of time discussing CDOs in great detail and I definitely haven't read another book that did such a good job of explaining them. However although the subject matter is interesting, I had a hard time getting through this one. I didn't gel so well with hi writing style and it felt a little too much a chore picking it up the last few times.
It's a good book to read, but you probably need to have an appetite for learning about the 2008 crisis in depth if you ...more
It's a good book to read, but you probably need to have an appetite for learning about the 2008 crisis in depth if you ...more
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Read in September, 2008
I had a hard time getting through this one. I do know quite a bit about the financial markets, but this is some strange stuff that the banks, hedge funds, etc, have been doing to totally mess up our economy!
"The question is whether the Countrywides of the world are risk-taking enterprises or public utilities. You can't be both. If the government is going to be on the hook, by means of deposit insurance, the various federal borrowing windows, or implicit federal insurance for "...more
"The question is whether the Countrywides of the world are risk-taking enterprises or public utilities. You can't be both. If the government is going to be on the hook, by means of deposit insurance, the various federal borrowing windows, or implicit federal insurance for "...more
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Read in June, 2008
This book is deceivingly short. It is dense, like...a black hole or something. A black hole about the mortgage crisis.
Anyway, the author goes into detail about the financial mess we're currently in and how we got there. He's a banker, so I trust he is qualified to discuss such things. He also used complicated terms that I can only pretend to understand. The gist is this: several factors, most notably the increased use of complex mathematical formulas to process loans resulted ...more
Anyway, the author goes into detail about the financial mess we're currently in and how we got there. He's a banker, so I trust he is qualified to discuss such things. He also used complicated terms that I can only pretend to understand. The gist is this: several factors, most notably the increased use of complex mathematical formulas to process loans resulted ...more
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Read in January, 2009
Written in the fall of 2007, the intended-to-be shock-inducing title echoes of Dr. Evil's paltry ransom demand of "ONE MILLION DOLLARS!". Book does a reasonably good job of going into some of the details of the 3-letter demons(CDO, CLO, CDS, etc) that have brought ruin upon everyone's lives, although if you aren't familiar with some of the terminology, it might feel a bit dense to read. If you work in the industry, it will feel like a good, well-written, but long Bloomberg magazine ar...more
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Read in January, 2009
If you've been dying to understand how a Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) works, this is the book for you. Otherwise, I can summarize the key points in this book as follows: if you invest billions of dollars in financial instruments you really don't understand, don't be suprised when you lose all of your money. Oh, and Alan Greenspan and adherents to the Chicago school of economics are all jerks (take that Steven Levitt!) I know, riveting stuff.
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I read this book as the credit crisis was beginning to manifest itself. I wanted to read it since it was written in late 2007 to see what he thought would happen. The author clearly predicted a lot of what was happening in September. He simply explains (to us non bankers) the complex instruments how they were originated and how they were becoming toxic.
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Read in October, 2008
I stumbled on this when looking for titles to help me understand the current unraveling of the economy. Morris was prescient in not only having predicted the collapse, but at the right scale of impact.
That said, this didn't quite get me what I needed - which is more of a "financial services instruments for dummies." While parts of this relatively short book are very lucid for the economically illiterate, it didn't take long before my head was spinning in the "toxic was...more
That said, this didn't quite get me what I needed - which is more of a "financial services instruments for dummies." While parts of this relatively short book are very lucid for the economically illiterate, it didn't take long before my head was spinning in the "toxic was...more
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Essentially explains (and predicts, given it was written about a year ago) the current financial crash. Oddest fact from the book? US Economy is about $14 trillion. The world economy is about $54 trillion. Value of financial derivatives before this meltdown began? $500 trillion.
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Read in December, 2008
A first attempt to document the years of ignorance and greed that led to the current economic crisis. A lot went over my head, but what I understood was well thought out, and some of the explanations definitely helped in my understanding.
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This is a great short book on some of the key causes of the meltdown. I had to read some chapters over to understand them but tha's me, not Morris. His writing is lucid and sharp. He's not afraid use his moral voice.
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Excellent book about the current financial crisis. Well-written and very to the point. In parts, it can get a bit bogged down in a few confusing details about different financial transactions, etc. but not too bad.
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This book, published in late 2007, predicted every step of the credit crisis, and only missed the mark by underestimating the dollar cost of the meltdown. Very interesting read.
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