All the Devils Are Here

The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis

By: Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers?

According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, the real answer is all of the above-and more. Many devils helped bring hell to the economy. And the full story, in all of its complexity and detail, is like the legend of the blind men and the elephant. Almost everyone has missed the big picture. Almost no one has put all the pieces together.

All the Devils Are Here goes back several decades to weave the hidden history of the financial crisis in a way no previous book has done. It explores the motivations of everyone from famous CEOs, cabinet secretaries, and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers, analysts, and Wall Street traders. It delves into the powerful American mythology of homeownership. And it proves that the crisis ultimately wasn't about finance at all; it was about human nature.

©2010 Bethany McLean (P)2010 Penguin Audio

Very revealing…

This book really outlines the origin of the crisis. Well worth the listen. Thank you!

an well-written & comprehensive view

To understand the financial and economic events in the US (& throughout the developed world) of the last couple of years, one book will not suffice. One book cannot tell you, analytically and with convincing evidence, the root causes, the immediate causes, the action of the crisis, the evaluation of the policy response. A number of good books are in the Audible collection on this subject. But this book by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera is among the best yet.

The authors do a good job digging back into the 1950-1980 period to find the institutional and policy roots of the current malaise (plenty of government policy to blame, over the decades), they are especially good in showing the constellation of actions (and inactions) in the 1990s and 2000s brought us to what now appears to be a perfect storm (of course, it was not, a perfect storm presupposes no human causes). The book is well-written, breezy, grabs you with lots of human stories and anecdotes. It can be read and understood quickly without a grounding in economics or quantitative methods.

It is shallow in parts. It could be more analytical in parts. But that is why reading more than one book is necessary (a good sweeping complement to this book is "This Time is Different"). Anyway, highly recommended work.

Dense but Important

This book is an explanation of how our recent economic crisis evolved. It's extremely complex, but it does seem to be comprehensive. I appreciate that the authors do not randomly blame any one party.

very worthwhile..fascinating

awesome, thorough, excellent review, going back to the 80s. I read the big short which i loved. this is a little more factual, goes back further in history so you can put the crisis in better context, and a very complementary analysis. really worthwhile for anyone trying to understand what happened. its amazing you think things are awful and can't get worse, and you are still a decade away from the final meltdown. unbelievable what actuallyhappened.

The Devil is Also in the Details

Winston Churchill called World War II the ???preventable war.??? He was referring to the failure of Britain, France and the US to stop Hitler at an early stage before he had accumulated such power and momentum that he could not be stopped short of a major war. Those who had looked closely at Hitler???s Germany were very concerned. Those who remained preoccupied with their own immediate interests preferred to overlook the risks of Nazi Germany.

This excellent book makes clear that much the same led to the financial crisis of 2008. Those who looked closely at the growth and sordid practices of the subprime lending business were appalled and concerned that it could not end well. Those who preferred to look the other way were the only people who could and should have stopped this financial monster early on: the major Wall Street firms, the ratings agencies, FNMA and FHLMC, and the federal banking regulators. All of the private firms allowed their immediate interests in profits, bonuses, and competitive standing to blind themselves to the huge potential losses they would face when the market finally came to appreciate the ludicrous credit quality of the subprime loans on their books. The federal regulators in turn showed insufficient interest in the abuses in the subprime market that were brought to their attention early on by states attorney general and other private parties. The regulators had no clear grasp on what was going on and did not take steps to address the problem until it was too late.

The book is the best and most comprehensive I have seen on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis.

Fascinating!

Appropriately titled. No ONE factor to blame for the financial crises. A richly layered, well thought out history of all the factors leading up to "the perfect storm" that became the crises. Sometimes a "heavy" read/listen with a lot of technical terms that are explained but sometimes difficult to remember. In spite of that you do get an idea of the concepts involved. It was also the correct balance between details without missing out on the bigger picture. I thought the narrator was exceptional.
Enlightening and entertaining. Overall a must read if the topic interests you at all.
Heck, even if the topic doesn't interest you: listen and be astonished!

A great summary of the mortgage meltdown

a great summary of the people, actions, financial vehicles, and the greed that led to the 2007 2008 mortgage meltdown. Well written, narrated and relatively easy to understand. Demonstrates the inevitable behavior of greed even among smart people who knew better and who will always need balanced regulation

Informative

Enjoyed the book. Sheds more light on the causes of the financial crisis of 2008.

The most comprehensive account.

This is one of the most comprehensive account of the forces responsible for the 2008 financial crisis. The book explored the roles of all the key players ranging from the Government Sponsored Entities and Treasury Dept to the Ratings Agencies and the reckless financial institutions. Very detailed, factual and well written. Highly recommended

Fascinating, even if over my head at times

The latest financial crisis has always intrigued me. The book House of Cards was incredible and I wanted to give this book a try as well. Having never worked in the financial industry, some of this stuff was over my head and it was a bit of a who's who at times. But overall, the story was compelling and kept me hooked.