First published 2011
Pulitzer Prize winner Gretchen Morgenson reveals how America's financial collapse began with a web of corruption between Washington and Wall Street. She traces the disaster to Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant that expanded rapidly during the Clinton years while resisting oversight despite receiving taxpayer subsidies. Working with coauthor Joshua Rosner, who documented early warning signs, Morgenson shows how executives at Fannie Mae joined forces with players at Countrywide Financial, Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve, and Congress to ignore mounting dangers. The book exposes how greed and fear drove officials to dismiss clear signals of coming catastrophe. Through previously unused sources and original investigation, Morgenson connects the actions that destroyed the American economy, revealing the complicity of the very regulators meant to prevent such disasters.
Genres: business, economics, non-fiction, 21st-century, finance, american-history
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: expose, investigative-reporting
Setting: America, Washington, Wall Street
Period: Clinton Years
331 pages · Hardcover · Times Books