The End of Wall Street

By: Roger Lowenstein

Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt

The roots of the mortgage bubble and the story of the Wall Street collapse-and the government's unprecedented response-from our most trusted business journalist.The End of Wall Street is a blow-by-blow account of America's biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression. Drawing on 180 interviews, including sit-downs with top government officials and Wall Street CEOs, Lowenstein tells, with grace, wit, and razor-sharp understanding, the full story of the end of Wall Street as we knew it. Displaying the qualities that made When Genius Failed a timeless classic of Wall Street-his sixth sense for narrative drama and his unmatched ability to tell complicated financial stories in ways that resonate with the ordinary reader-Roger Lowenstein weaves a financial, economic, and sociological thriller that indicts America for succumbing to the siren song of easy debt and speculative mortgages.The End of Wall Street is rife with historical lessons and bursting with fast-paced action. Lowenstein introduces his story with precisely etched, laserlike profiles of Angelo Mozilo, the Johnny Appleseed of subprime mortgages who spreads toxic loans across the landscape like wild crabapples, and moves to a damning explication of how rating agencies helped gift wrap faulty loans in the guise of triple-A paper and a takedown of the academic formulas that-once again- proved the ruin of investors and banks. Lowenstein excels with a series of searing profiles of banking CEOs, such as the ferretlike Dick Fuld of Lehman and the bloodless Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, and of government officials from the restless, deal-obsessed Hank Paulson and the overmatched Tim Geithner to the cerebral academic Ben Bernanke, who sought to avoid a repeat of the one crisis he spent a lifetime trying to understand-the Great Depression.Finally, we come to understand the majesty of Lowenstein's theme of liquidity and capital, which explains the origins of the crisis and that positions the collapse of 2008 as the greatest ever of Wall Street's unlearned lessons. The End of Wall Street will be essential reading as we work to identify the lessons of the market failure and start to rebuild.

Critic reviews

“Lowenstein, a magnificent business writer, creates an almost novelistic accounting of the all-too-real 2008 financial collapse…. Lowenstein has a pitch-perfect sense of the Street's monumental recklessness.”—Time

“[The End of Wall Street] is a complex but imaginative book… [Lowenstein] is able to identify the creative instruments of financial destruction with the directness that is all-important to a book like this.”—New York Times

“Think of Roger Lowenstein's The End of Wall Street as a tuition-free class in 21st-century U.S. macroeconomics... The End of Wall Street debunks the notion that no one could have seen the economic catastrophe coming.”—USA Today

“The End of Wall Street is a calm, reasoned, and often witty tour of the current financial landscape and how it got that way.”—Philadelphia Observer

“In the flood of new books about the financial crisis, Roger Lowenstein's is a standout. Lowenstein, a highly accomplished financial journalist, lays out what may be the best explanation yet of the recent crash—and as good a prediction as any on what happens next.”—Barron’s

"Lowenstein’s strong knowledge of the source material and flair for the dramatic and doomsday title should draw readers who still wonder what went wrong and how."—Publishers Weekly

“Lowenstein does a great job of explaining…in understandable terms that unobtrusively avoids the injection of emotion and politics.”—Booklist

“Over the past year, there has been a steady stream of books trying to make sense of the crisis. The latest, and perhaps the most accessible and even-handed, is Roger Lowenstein's The End of Wall Street."—Washington Post

"The End of Wall Street is a good book: witty, well-written, heavily researched and often dramatic.”—Associated Press/Huffington Post

“A veteran financial/business journalist examines the past three years of economic collapse, chronicling actions and inactions from dozens of villains and a few heroes…A well-delineated chronicle likely to cause readers to ask who put the clowns in charge of the circus, and why aren’t they confined to prison cells.” —Kirkus

Great investigative work, terrible narration

As a fan of Lowenstein's earlier book about LTCM implosion, I snatched this up the minute it was available. Unlike the LTCM story, however, most of us have lived through the recent crisis in real-time and have probably read quite a bit of what was happening ad nauseum. Although Lowenstien has done in homework, as usual, and supplies us with "fly-on-the-wall" tidbits, such as conversations that took palce inside boardroom meetings.

What the book does mainly is to paint a more nuanced and complete picture of the crisis, tracing it back to its early origin. The media has tried to pin the blame on specific persons (such as Greenspan or the greedy bank CEOs) or institutions (such as Goldman), but the truth is much more murky. We get a better glimpse on the CEOs, who acted on both peer pressure and their own ignorance about the actual complexity of the products. The political landscape is also an important factor, which has to do with Democrats that pushed homeownership and its unintended consequences.

For me, the book answers (though not definitely), some lingering questions, such as why the Fed decided not to bail out Lehman, and whether Henry Paulson was only the banks' interest.

Compared to Michael Lewis's "The Big Short," which cuts a narrow swath by focusing on several fringe players who profited from their prescience, "The End of Wall Street" is more like the definitive recounting that covers all the bases. I would strongly recommend reading both books to get the full picture.

As for the narration, I personally find it amateurish and annoying. He sounds like a college kid doing a bad impression of an old-time PSA (he hits the last word of each sentence hard and quick). I find the voice not only lacks gravitas but worse yet, sounds as if he's just "reading" without real comprehension. Check out the sample before making your decision.

Outstanding study of the 2008-2009 economic collapse

Very informative examination of the events leading up to, the collapse and the aftermath of the 2008-2009 economic meltdown.

surprisingly good

Having known little about the world of macro economics, I got done with this book much smarter about it. Lowenstein does a fantastic job of explaining what happened and giving you some clue about the players involved too. I loved it!

Great Book

Good unbiased narrative of the financial crisis. Lowenstein has a great talent in explaining economic complexities in an understandable even entertaining way. Deserves a second read. Excellent performance but a very disturbing book.

A whirlwind blow-by-blow of the financial crisis

Would you try another book from Roger Lowenstein and/or Erik Synnestvedt?

Yes. "When Genius Failed" is an incredible book, actually.

Would you recommend The End of Wall Street to your friends? Why or why not?

I would not, because most of my friends already know most of these events. But if you weren't glued to the news during the 2008 crisis, this book will give you a good overview of what happened.

Which scene was your favorite?

There were no really stand-out memorable scenes.

Did The End of Wall Street inspire you to do anything?

No.

Any additional comments?

If you're looking for a deep explanation of why the crisis happened, don't look here; it's a narrative overview, like reading through news clippings from the time period.