Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President

The narrator sounds like he should be narrating a detective story or The Twilight Zone. That actually is kind of nice, but he neglected to learn how to pronounce key terms such as "tranche" and AXA and keeps confusing "CDSs" [as in credit default swaps--complex and risky derivative insturments] for CDs [as in either certificates of deposit or the things music and/or data are recorded on].

The story is interesting, though not novel.

I do not like James Lurie's narration. He reads as though this is a dark mystery and in addition he was putting me to sleep. This is one that is better read than listened to in my opinion.

While a little tedious at times, this account of Obama’s first 1000 days (give or take) provides insight into why this great orator, who offered a vision of a better America, is an ineffectual President. The extent to which Obama was both supported and advised by the same Wall Street players that got rich while helping to create the financial meltdown is both insightful and disturbing.

I was disappointed to not hear about the influence organized labor played with this President, but this is a story about Obama and Wall Street. The author has some good connections into the inner workings of the administration, but does not seem to have a grasp of how the failures of financial regulation caused the very problems they were supposed to prevent.

The story line gets lost a bit when the author tries to explain the financial meltdown in terms of evil bankers versus virtuous regulators. He meanders into long stories describing how bankers gave into their craving for wealth and power, setting in motion a series of events that almost destroyed the economy.

The story is much more complex than that, as is implied when Lawrence Summers warns Geithner to “never admit you were wrong”. As we all know, Summers was part of the administration that relaxed financial regulation a decade earlier.

I recently listened to bios on FDR, Truman, JFK. I will go out on a limb to say Obama shares FDR’s lack of understanding of what to do, but lacked his ability to give people confidence in what he was doing. Obama and Truman both came from political machines, but Truman did a great job addressing the challenges in the post-war period, while Obama worries about getting re-elected. After listening to “1961” and “Brilliant Disaster”, I conclude Obama and JFK are comparable in many ways – marvelous at campaigning, dismal at leading.

This is the best book I have read on the subject of what went on behind the scenes during the first two years of Obama's presidency, what happened with healthcare, the economy and why his popularity flagged. The narration by James Lurie is just superb, I have listened to it four times and always hear something new. It is very informative and entertaining.

This is a book well worth your time. You'll see just how connected at the hip our banks, government and Wall Street really are. Ron Suskind is a Democrat and he writes with his Democrat perspective, but he is for the most part even handed. I think he may be a little kinder, more forgiving and definitely more understanding of these people than I am, but he is fair.

He seems to conclude that the man who ran for president (Barack Obama) just has not delivered. Because he had higher expectations and hopes for Obama in the begining--and more than I ever had--he probably had trouble bringing this book to light.

So, while I don't agree with all of Mr. Suskind's beliefs and premises regarding the size and role of government and philosophy of economics, I appreciate how much he has put before the American people in a good read.

You learn a lot about American Economy and financial matters.

Barack Obama

It is imposible to get this information at one sitting. It took me 2 weeks of intensive listenig. Run Suskind is an outstanding political writer. I learned a lot about economy and about the complexity of running this country. I lesten to most of Ron Suskind books ob Audible.com.

It was a long and extensive venture into politics and economy of our country

This book gives plenty of insight into the Obama White House. I pray that he can develop the leadership wisdom to take better advantage of his advisors over the next two years.

What is so disturbing about this book is Suskind's assessment that Obama is no task master and lacks courage and conviction. Further, Obama should have read Sutton's "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't " prior or forming his team - he would never hired Larry Summers.

After starting this book in hard cover I was delighted to find an audible.com version of it. Unfortunately, although the book is interesting and worth reading, the performance is so horrible that you start to hate the book. I did not think someone could be so dull in their reading of interesting event in our history but this audio version proves me wrong. I almost fell asleep listening to it in the car today. If I had insomnia, this performance would be a great cure but it is not a way to get the content of this otherwise important book.

I'm glad I listened, because it helped me understand a point of view that I didn't understand before. I read this book because it was recommended to me by a professional college with a very dark view of our country's economic future. I didn't realize the level of liberal bias from the author's view point prior to listening to the book. I figured it out pretty quick when Elizabeth Warren (Miss min. Wage should be $24 per hour) was characterized by the author as one of the most brilliant people on the face of the planet. I have a healthy skepticism about books like this that are written as a fly on the wall perspective on some of the most powerful people in the world. If you would like to understand why the far-left has been dissatisfied with Obama's first term this book is for you.

I have not, but I googled him halfway through listening and read some scathing opinions of the author that lead me to further distrust the validity of some of the quotes in the book. My problem with the author is he tries to give the impression that this is a hard hitting unbiased review of Obama's economic policy's but never really gets there. All the blame goes to Larry Somers and the harshest criticism of Obama is that he is too collegial and not Liberal enough.