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Audiobook16 hours
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers
Written by Lawrence G. McDonald and James Martin
Narrated by Erik Davies
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
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.
From the Hardcover edition.
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.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Reviews for A Colossal Failure of Common Sense
Rating: 3.875000023529412 out of 5 stars
4/5
68 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very good. Inside view and he doesn’t hold back . Recommend.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ever wonder what happened in 2008 to cause such a panic in the financial markets and the economies around the world, that some countries are still recovering from, or haven't recovered at all? This is a great book written by one of the VPs at one of the banks at the heart of the collapse and he gives us a great idea on how this all went down, even with warnings from various members on what was going to happen. The author seems a little bitter with the CEO of Lehman, rightly so after he lost his own life savings when the stock tanked because of incompetence, stubbornness and greed by the CEO. Great read for sure!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The author does a highly credible job weaving all of the circumstances of the crash together: the push to give low income Americans a shot at the American Dream of home ownership and the repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act, both undertaken during the Clinton administration. Also, he explains the risky financial vehicles in just enough detail so that non-Finance readers can follow their trajectory to the bottom. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and like another reviewer, I learned a lot.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A mouse's eye view of the collapse of Lehman Brothers -- it gives a fair idea of what was happening on the floor, but not much about what was going on further up in the organization. The book, written by a trader who spent four years at the firm before being laid off before the final blowup, does give a picture of the hyper-testosteroned atmosphere at the firm. But it's all presented in super-personal terms -- I learned a whole lot more about this individual's career and background than I wanted to know, and a whole lot less about the bad choices made by management. There are much, much better books about the crisis ("The Big Short", and "13 Bankers" to name two terrific ones) and there are also better books about the firm itself, though none so far have hit the nail on the head, for me at least. Read "Short" and "Bankers" to find out what was happening, and see "Margin Call" to find out how it felt.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved the way the author, Mr. McDonald, weaved together the story of his life - he didn't follow the traditional path to Wall Street - and the story of the fall of Lehman Brothers and the making of the financial crisis that, I think, changed the course of history.Mr. McDonald's view is not one-dimensional, in that he sees many causes for Lehaman's collapse. (Though I wonder if his dislike of Lehman's chairman is a bit over the top.)Also, though sometimes I had to reread some parts, I learned a lot about the world of finance, so this book is educating and well as entertaining.In the end, this is not just a story of Wall Street, but a story of one man's journey of overcoming obstacles only to find, unexpectedly, disillusionment and then a sort of redemption.To me, one of the themes of this book is: Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A very good book helping us to understand what brought us to this financial mess in 2008 and affected people like us in the Main Street. Besides greed and excessive risk taken by the top management of the investment banks, I think the creit rating agencies (eg Moody's S&P and Fitch) also need to be blamed as they are the ones who gave 'AAA" rating to the highly risky derivate products (eg, CDO, CDS etc.) in exchange for hefty fee. Really don't trust people from the Wall Street. I would better equip myself with financial literacy then rely on the advice of Wall Street.