Too Big to Fail

The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves

By: Andrew Ross Sorkin

Narrated by: William Hughes

Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System - and Themselves

A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times reporter. Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true, behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami.

From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego and greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world's economy.

"We've got to get some foam down on the runway!" a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the then-president of the Federal Reserve of New York, would tell Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, about the catastrophic crash the world's financial system would experience. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail re-creates all the drama and turmoil, revealing neverdisclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle.

This true story is not just a look at banks that were "too big to fail"; it is a real-life thriller with a cast of bold-faced names who themselves thought they were too big to fail.

©2009 Andrew Ross Sorkin (P)2009 Penguin Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Andrew Ross Sorkin pens what may be the definitive history of the banking crisis." ( The Atlantic Monthly)
"Andrew Ross Sorkin has written a fascinating, scene-by-scene saga of the eyeless trying to march the clueless through Great Depression II." (Tom Wolfe)

Great Book

Awesome book. There are definitely a lot of names to keep up with but you get the hang of it. Experiencing the dialogue of the leaders of the US economy was amazing. Would highly recommend.

Not what I was expecting...but..

I felt sick when I listened to this book.
The cast of characters were despicable.
If anything was too big to fail it was their individual ego's.

I am glad I purchased this book for the perspective it provides. It provided me with a better understanding of the markets and the people behind them.

The book does not spend a lot of time going into causes or ways to avoid this problem in the future. It is more like a series of snap shots over time that show events unfold over time. The perspective is rather clinical in nature.

An interesting look inside Wall Street

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I liked the book. I'm one of those people that finds economics interesting. It was an interesting look into the lives of people that make decisions that can make or break global economies. It shows the deregulation the forced the hand of large investment firms to make bets against better judgement, and the ensuing panic. all in all a good read.

awesome!

It will forever be hard to fathom how a few bad investments in a relatively confined sector of the market could have triggered a global "run on the bank";, but that is precisely what happened in 2008. This book is a remarkable piece of investigative reporting that chronicles the bank CEO's;s who were blindsided by the risks that their employees were taking and the civil servants (most of which were former bankers) who were desperately running ahead trying to anticipate where the fire would blow next.

It is easy to regard this period as a footnote in the history books, but that is only because of the tremendous hurried effort that went into avoiding a complete financial meltdown.

Sorkin's access is either truly remarkable or he has weaved in a bit of historical fiction into the narrative. Either way, it makes for a fantastic read!

Would have been better if the chapters were in order

The disappointment was in managing the chapter disorder of this Audible edition. The Preface was followed by chapter 8-13, reverting to chapter 1-7, then on to the remainder of the book.

Without the glossary of names, included in the printed version, it would’ve been much harder to track.

This account is just that, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. It spurred me to read the accounts by the key players as well as texts describing the fundamental problems, alternatives, and other crisi replays.

Fantastic

What a great behind the scenes look into what could have been a Great Depression. An especially good read given the current situation we are in with the pandemic.

Very well done

Kept to the facts and well presented. Organized the hectic times very well and made it easy to follow w/ so many players and balls in the air at once

Wonderful informative inside story

This book straddles great spaces, across times. Unless you have the big picture in mind when you listen, you will think the author is ranting about Lehman and Geithner alone.
The book starts with descriptions of each personality; Dick Fuld, Geithner, Paulson so that when the fun really starts you can easily relate to their behavior with the background the author has provided earlier.
Half of the book is about Lehman's hurtle into bankruptcy and how Fuld, because of his greed and head-in-sand approach prevented Korean investors, and almost everyone from buying Lehman. It also discusses how Lehman's complaint about short sellers was not acted upon by Paulson, who suddenly acted on short sellers when they started attacking Fortress Goldman.
It also states how bankers from Morgan stanley and Goldman high-fived each other when they hear the Fed is bailing out AIG.
We also hear the background as to where the magical number of $700bn came into TARP.
All through the book, one thing becomes clear: Banks can and will expect the government to bail them out when they are in trouble but are very reluctant to share the profits with the government.

Best Account of Crisis

I have read many books and lived through the hour by hour meltdown and this is by far the most accurate account of those events. Excellent format, and auditory. A must read.

excellent

timely. informative. wonderful and insightful character studies of the players who made and (significantly) ARE making policy. Very well written. Somewhat hard to follow the names and characters.