<![CDATA[House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street]]>

false <![CDATA[House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255635440m/5881889.jpg 5881889 6 On March 5, 2008, at 10:15 A.M., a hedge fund manager in Florida wrote a post on his investing advice Web site that included a startling statement about Bear Stearns & Co., the nation’s fifth-largest investment bank: “In my book, they are insolvent.” This seemed a bold and risky statement. Bear Stearns was about to announce profits of $115 million for the first quarter of 2008, had $17.3 billion in cash on hand, and, as the company incessantly boasted, had been a colossally profitable enterprise in the eighty-five years since its founding. Ten days later, Bear Stearns no longer existed, and the calamitous financial meltdown of 2008 had begun. How this happened – and why – is the subject of William D. Cohan’s superb and shocking narrative that chronicles the fall of Bear Stearns and the end of the Second Gilded Age on Wall Street. Bear Stearns serves as the Rosetta Stone to explain how a combination of risky bets, corporate political infighting, lax government regulations and truly bad decision-making wrought havoc on the world financial system. Cohan’s minute-by-minute account of those ten days in March makes for breathless reading, as the bankers at Bear Stearns struggled to contain the cascading series of events that would doom the firm, and as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, New York Federal Reserve Bank President Tim Geithner, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke began to realize the dire consequences for the world economy should the company go bankrupt. But HOUSE OF CARDS does more than recount the incredible panic of the first stages of the financial meltdown. William D. Cohan beautifully demonstrates why the seemingly invincible Wall Street money machine came crashing down. He chronicles the swashbuckling corporate culture of Bear Stearns, the strangely crucial role competitive bridge played in the company’s fortunes, the brutal internecine battles for power, and the deadly combination of greed and inattention that helps to explain why the company’s leaders ignored the danger lurking in Bear’s huge positions in mortgage-backed securities. The author deftly portrays larger-than-life personalities like Ace Greenberg, Bear Stearns’ miserly, take-no-prisoners chairman whose memos about re-using paper clips were legendary throughout Wall Street; his profane, colorful rival and eventual heir Jimmy Cayne, whose world-champion-level bridge skills were a lever in his corporate rise and became a symbol of the reasons for the firm’s demise; and Jamie Dimon, the blunt-talking CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who won the astonishing endgame of the saga (the Bear Stearns headquarters alone were worth more than JP Morgan paid for the whole company). Cohan’s explanation of seemingly arcane subjects like credit default swaps and fixed- income securities is masterful and crystal clear, but it is the high-end dish and powerful narrative drive that makes HOUSE OF CARDS an irresistible read on a par with classics such as LIAR’S POKER and BARBARIANS AT THE GATE. Written with the novelistic verve and insider knowledge that made THE LAST TYCOONS a bestseller and a prize-winner, HOUSE OF CARDS is a chilling cautionary tale about greed, arrogance, and stupidity in the financial world, and the consequences for all of us. 6054107 21 4 2009 House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street total:182|5:20|4:66|3:77|2:14|1:5| 182 628 491 72 5 0 true false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 23 08:04:20 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 23 12:35:10 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Sep 22 17:16:14 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 17:55:44 -0700 2009 George W. Bush reportedly said of a proposed fix for the financial meltdown of 20008, "Why am I supporting a program I don't understand?" Whatever you may think of Bush's intellect and leadership, his remark is right on target in what it reveals about the complexity of the problem an...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Apr 12 13:46:57 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 12 13:55:29 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Apr 05 22:21:51 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 05 22:28:46 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue May 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 22:00:29 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 22:32:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 20 23:28:29 -0700 2009 Wed May 20 23:28:40 -0700 2009
Ace Greenberg and Jimmy Cayne are described in deta...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Mar 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 17 07:57:06 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 08:27:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Apr 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 09 08:08:26 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 09 08:08:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Apr 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 14 08:59:22 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 06:13:47 -0700 2009
If this culture is typical, we have a lot of chang...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Apr 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 15:25:13 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 15:39:32 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Aug 18 23:55:31 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 23:57:48 -0700 2009
The 2008 collapse of leading Wall Street investment house Bear Stearns showed the world just how rickety the global financial system had become. William D. Cohan tracks the firm’s dizzying rise and rapid collapse...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Aug 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 15 02:37:58 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 06 14:16:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu May 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 20 18:38:59 -0700 2009 Sun May 31 22:46:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon May 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 12 08:01:07 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 08:27:11 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 true false Wed Jun 03 18:48:24 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 06:12:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Jun 24 17:52:19 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 24 17:54:21 -0700 2009
The final parts of the book are reminiscent of the book of Exodus (in the bible, not Leon Uris'), with a long (long) (...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Aug 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 31 15:25:31 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 21 18:01:08 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jul 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 21 17:52:54 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 09:24:54 -0700 2009
It's not that I didn't like it. There were bits I loved. But I couldn't bear to read about the cast of characters involved... they're petty, venal, scumbags who only think about how to screw vulnerable people out of money and then...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat May 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 08:42:21 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 08:58:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 05:34:36 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 06:40:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=5881889