Too Big to Fail

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

De: Andrew Ross Sorkin

Narrado por: William Hughes

Andrew Ross Sorkin's website

Andrew Ross Sorkin's interview on Charlie Rose

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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

Reseñas de la Crítica

"...comprehensive and chilling..."
-TIME

"...his action scenes are intimate and engaging..."
-The New Yorker

"Sorkin's prodigious reporting and lively writing put the reader in the room for some of the biggest-dollar conference calls in history. It's an entertaining book, brisk book...Sorkin skillfully captures the raucous enthusiasm and riotous greed that fueled this rational irrationality."
-The New York Times Book Review

"...brings the drama alive with unusual inside access and compelling detail...A deeply researched account of the financial meltdown."
-BusinessWeek

"...meticulously researched...told brilliantly. Other blow-by-blow accounts are in the works. It is hard to imagine them being this riveting."
-The Economist

"Sorkin's densely detailed and astonishing narrative of the epic financial crisis of 2008 is an extraordinary achievement that will be hard to surpass as the definitive account...as a dramatic close-up, his book is hard to beat."
-Financial Times

"Sorkin's book, like its author, is a phenom...an absolute tour de force."
-The American Prospect

"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

"...Sorkin has succeeded in writing the book of the crisis, with amazing levels of detail and access."
-Reuters

"Sorkin can write. His storytelling makes "Liar's Poker" look like a children's book."
-SNL Financial

Well written, performed and fascinating

This makes our recent financial history something between a spy novel and paulson biography. If you are interesting in contemporary issues and how our world is currently being formed READ THIS.

Great great read

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

I would highly recommend this book. For layman who is interested in understanding the meltdown of the markets 2 years ago this book is a must.

What did you like best about this story?

Sorkin creates very vivid portraits of all the important players. Its an easy read and doesn't require you to have a depth of wall street knowledge to understand what happened.

What about William Hughes’s performance did you like?

Everything. He brings just the right tone- not overly dramatic, not campy.

If you could give Too Big to Fail a new subtitle, what would it be?

Why Lehman was Allowed to Fail

This is the one

This is the one to get. Mr. Sorkin does an amazing job of putting all the facts together in a way that's fair, that makes sense, and that acknowledges the complexity of the subject matter. It's a little dry, but I personally found it captivating.

The Big Short is another good place to start for understanding the financial crisis.

Excellent description of a time

This book is an excellent portrayal of events leading up to and during the tarp rollout in 2008. It doesn’t cover much before or after that period at all. Its thorough, well researched and definitely worth a read. The book doesn’t argue whether the outcome of 2008 was good or bad. Simply present the evidence for the reader to listen to and decide.

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!

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