Dumb Money

How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation

By: Daniel Gross

Narrated by: Jesse Boggs

Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

For anyone struggling to understand how our current financial crisis came about, for anyone afraid to look at their 401k, for anyone concerned about the future of the global economy, Daniel Gross is the man to listen to. Known for his candid and informative columns in Newsweek and Slate, Gross has a sharp mind and a deep understanding of the ins and outs of the financial crisis.

In this up-to-the-minute account, Gross goes step by step through the timeline leading up to the October 2008 bail-out and explains what exactly happened. Using information and statistics only weeks old, he offers a thorough and enlightening analysis of where we all go from here.

©2009 Daniel Gross (P)2009 Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Deliciously sarcastic and deadpan!!!!!

This book is hilarious. Delicious sarcasm at well-deserved targets oozes from every (I would say page but it's an audiobook.) I have listened to several books on "Why did the financial meltdown happen?" and this is hands down the most entertaining. The only drawback is the narrator was kind of monotone and in my opinion didn't use the proper inflection to emphasize the right words and underscore the snark. I have heard the author of this book on podcasts, and wish the author had narrated the book himself. He would have known where to pause for just the right effect and what words to emphasize.

Good Overview of the Mess that is Wall Street

Dan Gross does a good job of outlining what happened up to December 2008. Easy to Follow and really goes to show that we need more regulation in Wall Street. I would recommend.

A witty and fun analysis

I enjoyed this book because I found it exceptionally witty and funny, but to a laymen in financial sector, some of the concept such as hedge fund derrivitives and Credit Default Swaps can be confusing, but it's analysis is still wonderful and insightful, highly diggestible, entertaining and concise essay.

Concise, well written and logical.

The book tries the impossible - to explain how the financial crisis started, grew, collapsed and took our money with it.

Daniel Gross has the uncanny ability to make complicated issues understandable and logical. If you're looking for one place to understand what went wrong, start here. If you read only one book on the collapse, this is it.

Informative

A good introduction. Being fairly ignorant of things financial I felt that there might be a lot of terms that would go over my head but the author keeps it pretty basic I suppose, given the number of books on the subject that there are other points of view but I didn't really feel that Mr. Gross was pointing out any one villain but rather a series a failures on the part of many.

Informative

Explains a lot about the current economic storm in ways that make sense to anyone that tries to understand, kind of a comment on the human condition, and maybe some sage advice!

Best Book on the cause of the Great Rescession

Any additional comments?

Dumb Money is the best book I have read about the last financial crisis. It explains in layman's terms how the events in the U.S. pushed the world economy to the brink of collapse and caused the Great Recesison. Daniel Gross sets forth a step-by-step analysis as to how lax mortgage lending practices in the U.S. mortgage industry, coupled with low interest rates, led to this calamity.
If you want to understand what caused our economy to malfunction and the roles played by home buyers, mortgage companies, rating agencies, government regulators, Wall Street, and Fannie Mae, Dumb Money is a good place to start.

Newsweek political agenda

Don't waste your time with this political hit piece unless you think the cause of the problem was McCain having 8 houses or John Thain of the then NYSE getting his news from Fox news or the inability of Bush to force regulation on Wall Street Democratic cronies, Feddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Total waste of time. Everything is Bush's fault in this Newsweek writer's opinion. Nothing new to learn.