Decisions

Life and Death on Wall Street

By: Janet M. Tavakoli

Narrated by: Robin McKay

Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Janet Tavakoli's Wall Street memoir

Financial insider Janet Tavakoli illuminates what led to the collapse of 2008 and delves into the connection between Wall Street and Washington. From hidden information to false names to suicides, this fascinating memoir offers a clear, precise account of the state of the economic world.

©2015 Janet M. Tavakoli (P)2015 Janet M. Tavakoli

Critic reviews

"Merrill debauchery only begins this woman's tale. 'Neither Bill nor I believed Calvi committed suicide,' Tavakoli writes. 'Bill joked that he'd never hang himself. It was too gruesome.'" ( Bloomberg News)

"Janet Tavakoli is a born storyteller with an incredible tale to tell. She takes us on a brisk journey from the depravity of 1980s Wall Street to the systemic recklessness that crushed the global economy." (Nomi Prins, author of All the Presidents' Bankers)

"Tavakoli takes us on a scenic tour of the recent lowlights of Wall Street and Washington...demystified and rendered tragically human. It's a compelling tale." (Jake Bernstein, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting)

The counter-narrative to Geithner, Paulson, et al.

Plenty of other authors have dished up roughly this viewpoint (or at least parts of it) of the corrupt banksters, and the tradition goes way back. But here, as it focuses into the 2008 crash and beyond, it is neat, concise, and cutting sharp as ice. I was rolling my eyes with the author's choosing to open with disgust at the strippers on the trading floor (thinking oh no, how trivial as an opener to such a book as this, even if I share the disgust), but I do share with the author the (at least perceived) suggestion that a generation of traders and their brethren have shallow, cheesy cheapened values (for all the mind-boggling price tags on their cheap toys and trinkets, human ones included) that permeate more than their sexually harassing and idiotic bachelor parties during business hours. We are better than that, and we deserve better than that, as the folks pulling levers in the corridors of power that in turn impose multi-decade financial burdens on we, the peasants. Now, as to Tim Geithner and John Paulson, I am grateful for the author's trail of bread crumbs suggesting all is not kosher at those lofty heights. I'm not quite so adversarial toward those fellows, inasmuch as I seem to have survived these strained years in one piece, some of which I see as linked to their decisions. They could REALLY have fumbled the ball, and they didn't, but that doesn't excuse everything laid out here. Bravo to the author whose work I have enjoyed a lot. And we DO need to scrutinize the little cabals that keep feeding into, particularly, the Treasury Secretary's perch. Keep it up!

Self centred

A weak story about someone who believes they personally and single handed change Wall Street behaviour