A Colossal Failure of Common Sense

The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers

By: Lawrence G. McDonald, Patrick Robinson

Narrated by: Erik Davies

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now: What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers—right from the belly of the beast.

In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider, reveals, the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done. The book is couched in the very human story of Larry McDonald’s Horatio Alger-like rise from a Massachusetts “gateway to nowhere” housing project to the New York headquarters of Lehman Brothers, home of one of the world’s toughest trading floors.

We get a close-up view of the participants in the Lehman collapse, especially those who saw it coming with a helpless, angry certainty. We meet the Brahmins at the top, whose reckless, pedal-to-the-floor addiction to growth finally demolished the nation’ s oldest investment bank. The Wall Street we encounter here is a ruthless place, where brilliance, arrogance, ambition, greed, capacity for relentless toil, and other human traits combine in a potent mix that sometimes fuels prosperity but occasionally destroys it.

The full significance of the dissolution of Lehman Brothers remains to be measured. But this much is certain: it was a devastating blow to America’s—and the world’s—financial system. And it need not have happened. This is the story of why it did.©2009 Lawrence G. McDonald; (P)2009 Random House

Critic reviews

“...gives the readers a visceral sense of what it was like to work at Lehman Brothers and the fateful decisions and events that led to the company’s death spiral...”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Highly readable…A Colossal Failure of Common Sense largely rings true. It expresses the anger that many former Lehman employees still feel toward Mr. Fuld. And it convincingly characterizes the investment bank as a house divided against itself, between the bears who had foreseen bubbles and the bulls who wrongly believed that this time was different.”
—The Economist

“... describes a CEO ­acting as if his firm was too big to fail.”
—Wall Street Journal

“...poignantly told...from an insider [who] witnessed, often in amazement and disgust, the corporate dysfunction and hubristic leadership that led to [Lehman’s] demise.”
—BusinessWeek

“...engaging and even funny.”
—Fortune

Great understanding of Wall Street

The way stories should be narrated. Really good book. Hope the author writes more books

Great book. Well read.

Listened to it many times. Well worth it. I will buy this book in print also.

What History tells Us!

Our evolution continues, but just as in sports that this author loves, or the comfort of our society for the well to do, the idea if free capitalism is an illusion. Rules, laws, verification that those rules are beneficial is critical. The referees are what make the game work. These pure capitalism guys, libertarian thinkers such as Paulson are the problem. Dinosaurs whose age is passed.

The test will be how Covid rescue will compare to Wall Street rescue, money to the people versus to Wall Street, I am optimistic this rescue will fair better!!!

Entertaining, but not factual

Author is self-absored and was clearly a low-level trader at Lehman, so a lot of what is proffered is hearsay. Also, I really didn't care to know about his life story in the first 3 chapters - irrelevant and self-serving, not to mention poorly written. If you like hearing lots of dirt, regardless of source or validity, this might work for you. Forthcoming books and audio on Lehman's collapse will have far more credibility - I hope.

Well said

Very well done with telling the story in a personal and professional way. This brings you inside LB during the crisis.