First published 2010
The 2008 financial crisis didn't have a single villain. McLean and Nocera trace the disaster back decades to reveal how multiple players created the perfect storm. Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide wanted to democratize homeownership but got seduced by subprime profits. Roland Arnall built Ameriquest on deceptive lending practices. Hank Greenberg turned AIG into a complex machine only he understood. Stan O'Neal's Goldman envy destroyed Merrill Lynch. Lloyd Blankfein shifted Goldman Sachs from client service to profit maximization. Franklin Raines let Fannie Mae drift from its mission while bullying regulators. Brian Clarkson sacrificed Moody's integrity for market share. Alan Greenspan ignored the housing bubble and dangerous lending practices. The authors argue the crisis wasn't fundamentally about finance but about human nature and flawed incentives across Wall Street, regulatory agencies, and political institutions.
Genres: business, economics, non-fiction, 21st-century, finance
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: hidden-history, investigative-journalism
Period: 2008
380 pages · Hardcover · Portfolio/Penguin