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Author: Charles R. Morris
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $10.00
You Save: $12.95 (56%)
New (43) Used (14) from $10.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 1589
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 1586485636
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.04150973
EAN: 9781586485634
ASIN: 1586485636
Publication Date: March 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Good read for a novice in the financial industry July 8, 2008
Though it took me a while to understand some of the math in this book, I found it quite intriguing and for the most part, quite readable. Morris indentifies various factors that will lead to the collapse of the financial markets but mainly he suggests that all these scams that are out there used by hedge funds, banks, and other equity firms are simply asking for trouble. He indentifies the derivatives markets, siv's, lax credit practices, and loose regulation as the main culprits in the pending disaster. Interesting though that this process did not start with the George Bush administration. Instead, it has it origins with the Nixon administration with the free floating dollar and only escalated during the Reagan administration and into the 1990's. Morris also places blame on the Chicago School of thought, which advocates no government regulation for all the dubious financial instruments in the market today. Though he expects about 1 trillion dollar loss in the asset market, this number is being very very conservative. Given the absolute lack of market oversight, Morris argues that we come to a point in our country's history where we will have to return to a system of regulation due to consequences that will shortly follow.
I agree with his suggestions about market oversight even though I am more of a limited government type person. Though we may have slight differences in ideology (if any), I found his book to be a good read. If you are a novice like me, you will have to go over the math a few times to understand how he came about his conclusions especially as it pertains to leverage ratios of derivatives. Recommended.
 Keen Insight June 27, 2008
This book is the financial layman's primer for the credit crisis. It is clear, concise, and offers a mature and historically-grounded view of the credit bubble, past, present, and harrowing future. A great read.
Outstanding Book! June 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you want to understand what and why are US (and international) banks suddenly covering every corner of the world to raise capital - this book has the answers!
Morris has an incredible foresight. While the book was written before the Banking Crisis hit the US, you feel as if you were reading the morning's newspaper.
A must for any business person!
Sketchy but informative June 14, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The author paints a very broad picture in leading us into the main focus of the book, which is the credit crunch resulting largely from the subprime mortgage mess. The sketches of previous bubbles leading up to this bubble give helpful background and strengthen the notion that this debacle is part of an ongoing trend dating back to the 80s. There is precedent for the current troubles in the 1987 market crash, the LTCM hedge fund failure, and the demise of GE's Kidder Peabody in 1994.
A number of ingredients have gone into the mix of these ever arising bubbles. Since the advent of computer trading, investment banks and hedge funds have been able to develop more and more complex financial instruments that have made them more and more enthusiastic about taking on risk. They are aided by the fact that they can essentially work in dark corners behind the scenes with no regulators poking around. Success leads to the prospect that even fatter returns are within reach if they keep leveraging their positions. The fuel that keeps the fires burning is easy money and burgeoning asset values; and it all works well until home prices stop going up or the Fed decides to raise interest rates. Then we have a crash.
The book gives the reader a glimpse into what goes on in the dealmaking recesses of the investment banking world. We learn, for instance, that a Credit Default Swap is a credit derivative that is supposed to hedge against mortgage defaulting and that synthetic CDOs are arrays of Credit Default Swaps with different tranches divided according to risk; and that SIVs are a means the banks use to hide the stuff from their books.
The macroeconomic viewpoint of this book is far too sketchy to enable anything but a scattershot casting of blame. The author would have done better to have maintained more of a focus on the excesses of unregulated finance and the problems of remedy. The recent fallout, which has so far included the government rescue of Bear Stearns - an abandonment of free market principles, leads to the obvious conclusion that sensible regulation is necessary. Nevertheless, there seem to be many in influential positions who prefer to look the other way and parrot that any regulation is bad regulation.
Excellent, explanation of the current credit crisis June 13, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The book provides an excellent analysis of the current US inspired credit crisis that is threatening the financial system. The problem boils down to an unwinding of an enormous credit bubble, built up over the last twenty five years, and a corrupt, overly leveraged, wall street establishment that is able the pocket gains and socialize losses. The problem is not necessarily one with the free market (in the real sense), but rather one with the current neo-corporatist model (aka Chicago school monetarism, or soft fascism) where in effect the most powerful and wealthy interests in a country gain control of the state regulatory and legislative agencies and use them as a battering ram to further their own private interests at public expense. Of course the public is usually too distracted and dumbed down to ever figure out what is going on until after their bank accounts are empty, they're hopelessly in debt, and their children are being packed off to fight the latest war for "freedom and democracy".
It seems that this same neo-corporatist model is to some extent also at work in the pharmaceutical, media, and military industrial complexes as well. It creates a type of "tapeworm economy", or ponzi scheme, that eventually caves in on itself.
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