The Trillion Dollar Meltdown

Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash

By: Charles R. Morris

Narrated by: Nick Summers

Length: 5 hrs

Publisher's summary

The sub-prime mortgage crisis is only the beginning; a more profound economic and political restructuring is on its way.

According to Charles R. Morris, the astronomical leverage at investment banks, with their hedge-fund and private-equity clients, virtually guarantees massive disruption in global markets. A quarter century of free-market zealotry that extolled asset striping, abusive lending, and hedge-fund secrecy will come crashing down with it.

The Trillion Dollar Meltdown explains how we got here, and what is about to happen.

©2008 Charles R. Morris (P)2008 Phoenix Audio

Critic reviews

"In his brief but brilliant book, Morris describes how we got into the mess we are in....Few writers are as good as Morris at making financial arcana understandable and even fascinating." ( New York Times Book Review)
"[A] shrewd primer....[Morris] writes with tight clarity and blistering pace." ( Bloomberg News)
"Morris deftly joins the dots between the Keynesian liberalism of the 1960s, the crippling stagflation of the 1970s and the free-market experimentation of the 1980s and 1990s, before entering the world of ultra-cheap money and financial innovation gone mad." ( The Economist)

The Advanced Introduction

If you have analytical training, but don't understand modern finance, especially the kind at the hart of the current crisis, this book will explain it starting from basic concepts. It is ideally suited for engineers and scientists who can follow the mathematical concepts without a lot of hand holding, but really need an introduction to the relevant financial insterments.

If you don't understand the difference between a long position and a short position or basic concepts about the stock market or if you don't have some intuition for probability this is probably too difficult a read. If you are a financial professional it's probably too elementary. But for many it will be the perfect balance.

A Road Map for the Crises to Come

I purchased this book and "The Subprime Solution" by Robert J. Shiller in late September. Both books were published before the financial crisis which started with the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in mid-September. I've listened to both books several times and learn a little more each time. Both predicted the mess that we're in and others to come. If you only have time for one, this is the one to listen to. The subject matter is not easy to understand but Morris does the better job of getting it down to layman's terms while Shiller goes academic. Also Morris' book has a longer time horizon as to what other financial shocks we can expect.

The Trillion Dollar Meltdown (Unabridged)

An outstanding explanation of the current economic crisis and a history of its development.

Not bad

This was great from a history of what occurred in the market over the last century but didn’t always keep my attention.

I wish I could make all Americans read this book.

This was one of the best audibooks to which I've ever listened. For anyone who has the patience and desire to understand the history and mechanics of the current credit crisis, this is THE place to start. Couldn't possibly give a higher recommendation.

Where is all the money?

Not an easy "read" if you don't have a good knowledge of Wall Street lingo. Full of acronyms, a person may have to replay several times to get the meaning. Concise, but not reading for a financial "newbee".

good look back

good look back at the financial crash of the late 2000
interesting prospective on excesses greed and
corruption and fraud

A Sorry Tale

If you really want to know what happened, this book can get you up to speed. You don't have to know economics, but will need a real interest to stay with the text. The reader and writing are good.

Outstanding - Read it!

It's happening now, and we all know it. But very few people can really put the pieces together and figure out just what all the chaos in the financial markets really means. That's what this book does -- superbly. Anyone who wants to understand how derivatives relate to subprime mortgages and credit default swaps, and why it matters, should read (listen to) this book. My highest recommendation!

Great history and explanation

This book provides a considerable amount of background information for the current economic meltdown -- good history of the past few decades and an explanation of all the financial tools that we read about, but few of us understand. Regulation is needed to prevent excess from happening again.