Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves

by Andrew Ross Sorkin

“You announced the wrong plan!” Schwarzman told him. “What do you mean?” Wilkinson asked. “You won’t practically be able to figure out a way to buy these assets in a short period of time to provide liquidity to the system without either screwing the taxpayers or screwing the banks,” Schwarzman warned him. “And you won’t be able to force people to sell!” He explained that most bank CEOs would prefer to leave their bad assets on their books at depressed prices rather than have to realize a huge loss. “And,” he added, “each package of these assets is so highly complex that it’s not like bidding for a bond; you have to do a lot of in-depth analysis, and that takes weeks to months, and meanwhile, if you do nothing for weeks to months, you’re going to go back into crisis.”