Assignment 4 Who were the main players, and who impressed you most (you found most interesting)?

The main players were, Henry Paulson - U.S. Treasury Secretary Ben Bernanke - Chairman of the Federal Reserve Timothy Geithner - President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Jim Wilkinson - Chief of Staff, U.S. Treasury Department Neel Kashkari - Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economics and Development Michele Davis - Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Relations and Director of Policy Planning Vikram Pandit - CEO, Citibank Jamie Dimon - Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase John Mack - Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley Dick Fuld - Chairman and CEO, Lehman Brothers Lloyd Blankfein - Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs John Thain - Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch Warren Buffett - Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway None of the characters impressed me. The notable character for me was of Dick Fuld. How his ego and simple denial caused biggest financial crisis. Also impressed me the fact that Treasury while did not bail out Lehman how had eat their own words while bailing out AIG and others. I was also impressed by mostly by recklessness in decision making shown during the crisis and how the deals fell apart due to small reasons. The most amazing piece was how bank regulator from UK made the deal fail between Lehman and Barclays or how the Koreans walk out due Fulds mistakes

Which were the main events, and which event did you think was of most importance? Main events were loss of opportunity on saving lehman by private banks due to simple selfish interests during the weekend meeting called by Treasury, collapse of Lehman brothers, bailout of AIG, forced capital infusion in all banks. Of all the events most captivating event is of course

fall of Lehman brothers. However I think bigger event is loss of opportunity by private players when Treasury wanted them to save Lehman. Similarly a disastrous decision by Hank Paulson to let Lehman go bankrupt just to save his name as a person who does not bail out the banks. What is the main takeaway? Main takeaway from this book is the problem that caused financial crisis has only gotten bigger and there have not been any long term remedies. All fixes that have been done are short term and Government expects market to take care of themselves. Another main takeaway is, while deregulation sounds like good thing in short term, it typically works good for few rich wall street bankers. Book also makes you think that too much regulation may not be as bad as too little regulation. What is your favorite moment in the book? I think my most favourite moment from the book is where Treasury secretary and his staff cook up explanation for why they are saving AIG while they let Lehman go under. They try to phrase it in simple english a story which is true but was also true at the moment when they declined to save Lehman. Also liked the fact when Thain from Merrill Lynch tries to get bought out by BOA and Paulson finds it out only left to make a deal with Barclays. The comment at that time is telling as Wachovia CEO says they are not on top of things. Was there anything that really surprised you? There are two things that really surprised me even after reading so much about crisis. First thing is how bad of decision maker Fuld was to let go off the three or four opportunities to get bought out. Had he agreed to one of the deals with Koreans, BOA, Buffet and Barclays he would have saved Lehman but his insistence of calling Lehman at 66 $/share until very end was just unfortunate. Second thing that really surprised me is how Ben Bernanke played along with Sec Paulson in front of Congress to scare them. At that very moment this market lost opportunity of creative destruction that was needed to save these long term issues in the market. But as I mentioned earlier reckless decision making just to save financial system in its current form by Sec Paulson has led us to a time where we have lot of problems in the system and banks have become too big to fail. The exact thing Government wanted to avoid while bailing out these wall street banks. How many stars do you give this book? I will give this 3.5 stars. This book is made little melodramatic and tries a very hard attempt to paint Hank Paulson and team in positive light. By making them center of the movie they miss out many other players and main players of them all, congress and the president. The portrayal of Hank Paulson and Bernanke is very good but too positive to digest.