Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves
Andrew Ross Sorkin - 2009
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.
All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
Bethany McLean - 2010
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.Among the devils you'll meet in vivid detail:• Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide, who dreamed of spreading homeownership to the masses, only to succumb to the peer pressure-and the outsized profits-of the sleaziest subprime lending.• Roland Arnall, a respected philanthropist and diplomat, who made his fortune building Ameriquest, a subprime lending empire that relied on blatantly deceptive lending practices.• Hank Greenberg, who built AIG into a Rube Goldberg contraption with an undeserved triple-A rating, and who ran it so tightly that he was the only one who knew where all the bodies were buried.• Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, aloof and suspicious, who suffered from "Goldman envy" and drove a proud old firm into the ground by promoting cronies and pushing out his smartest lieutenants.• Lloyd Blankfein, who helped turn Goldman Sachs from a culture that famously put clients first to one that made clients secondary to its own bottom line.• Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae, who (like his predecessors) bullied regulators into submission and let his firm drift away from its original, noble mission.• Brian Clarkson of Moody's, who aggressively pushed to increase his rating agency's market share and stock price, at the cost of its integrity.• Alan Greenspan, the legendary maestro of the Federal Reserve, who ignored the evidence of a growing housing bubble and turned a blind eye to the lending practices that ultimately brought down Wall Street-and inflicted enormous pain on the country.Just as McLean's The Smartest Guys in the Room was hailed as the best Enron book on a crowded shelf, so will All the Devils Are Here be remembered for finally making sense of the meltdown and its consequences.
Best Ever Apartment Syndication Book
Joe Fairless - 2018
Becoming an expert on the apartment syndication terminology2. Setting a specific, quantifiable goal and creating a long-term, motivating vision3. Building a powerful brand that attracts passive investors4. Evaluating and selecting the real estate market that will be the launching point for your apartment empire5. Surrounding yourself with an all-star real estate team6. Tapping into your existing network to find passive investors7. Creating a lead generation machine that pumps out qualified off-market apartment deals8. Selecting the ideal business plan to maximize returns to passive investors9. Learning the science behind evaluating, qualifying and submitting offers on apartment deals10. Preparing and presenting an apartment offering to your passive investors and securing financial commitments11. Impressing your investors by effectively implementing the business plan and exceeding their return expectations
Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns
Thomas N. Bulkowski - 2000
Bulkowski tells you how to trade the significant events -- such as quarterly earnings announcements, retail sales, stock upgrades and downgrades -- that shape today's trading and uses statistics to back up his approach. This comprehensive new edition is a must-have reference if you're a technical investor or trader. Place your order today. The most complete reference to chart patterns available. It goes where no one has gone before. Bulkowski gives hard data on how good and bad the patterns are. A must-read for anyone that's ever looked at a chart and wondered what was happening. -- Larry Williams, trader and author of Long-Term Secrets to Short-Term Trading
Bingo Queens of Paradise: A Novel
June Park - 1999
But as she plans her escape to New York City, turmoil erupts and the demands of family stand between her and her suitcase. Darla must, for the first time in her life, cast an unflinching eye on the hard-to-accept truths regarding love, responsibility, and survival. The Bingo Queens of Paradise lyrically blends a powerful comic voice with a poignant tale of a woman who longs to pursue her dreams.
The Zodiac Queen: Season Two
Gemma James - 2021
USA Today bestselling author Gemma James brings you season one of the Zodiac Queen, a unique and steamy tale of a young queen caught between twelve signs.Twelve men, a virgin queen, one arranged marriage…Cancer: Vance Morgan—a kinky doctor with an exhibitionist streak.Leo: Sebastian Stone—the rebellious and passionate man whose ocean eyes set me ablaze.Virgo: Miles Sinclair—the virgin of the brotherhood and someone not to be crossed.Twelve men from twelve houses, and I must spend a month with each one, yielding to their desires and shedding my innocence so long as my virtue remains intact.Because the men of the Zodiac Brotherhood want a virgin queen after the last month concludes, and my uncle plans to auction me off to the highest bidder.Out of the twelve men on this island, only one has my heart.And only one can claim my hand in marriage.If only it were up to me to decide.Includes Cancer, Leo, and Virgo.
Value At Risk: The New Benchmark for Managing Financial Risk
Philippe Jorion - 1996
The Rise of Carry: The Dangerous Consequences of Volatility Suppression and the New Financial Order of Decaying Growth and Recurring Crisis
Tim Lee - 2019
But none has revealed just how significant a role it plays in the global economy--until now.A groundbreaking book sure to leave its mark in the canon of investing literature, The Rise of Carry explains how carry trading has virtually shaped the global economic picture--one of decaying economic growth, recurring crises, wealth disparity, and, in too many places, social and political upheaval. The authors explain how carry trades work--particularly in the currency and stock markets--and provide a compelling case for how carry trades have come to dominate the entire global business cycle. They provide thorough analyses of critical but often overlooked topics and issues, including:-The active role stock prices play in causing recessions--as opposed to the common belief that recessions cause price crashes-The real driving force behind financial asset prices-The ways that carry, volatility selling, leverage, liquidity, and profitability affect the business cycle-How positive returns to carry over time are related to market volatility--and how central bank policies have supercharged these returnsSimply put, carry trading is now the primary determinant of the global business cycle--a pattern of long, steady but unspectacular expansions punctuated by catastrophic crises.The Rise of Carry provides foundational knowledge and expert insights you need to protect yourself from what have come to be common market upheavals--as well as the next major crisis.
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel - 2020
It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. How to manage money, invest it, and make business decisions are typically considered to involve a lot of mathematical calculations, where data and formulae tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world, people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. In the psychology of money, the author shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important matters.
Dream Big: Let Your Financial Plan Make Your Dreams Come True
Mukesh Jindal - 2017
Today, he is the owner of a flourishing taxi service business and is scouting around to buy a Mercedes Benz...not on a loan but with the wealth he has amassed over the years! How did he get from being a driver to a millionaire? Three simple secrets - he had the courage to dream big, learn about financial planning and implement what he learnt. Now, while you don't need anyone to help you to dream big, here is a book that will teach you everything that Vaibhav learnt. All you have to do is find the tenacity to implement it. Everything, from the importance of saving and investing and the need for life and health insurance to various investment products like mutual funds, SIP, PPF etc. that can enable you to build wealth, is explained in this book in simple and jargon free language. It helps you to choose instruments that are most suitable for you and explains why you would be better off without others. Dream Big simplifies and breaks down common financial planning principles such as risk profiling, asset allocation, portfolio construction, rebalancing etc. and explains the tax implications of various investment decisions. It also contains sections on planning for retirement and a legacy, and financial planning for women, divorced individuals, defence employees, senior citizens, etc.
Shakedown Socialism: Unions, Pitchforks, Collective Greed, The Fallacy of Economic Equality, and other Optical Illusions of "Redistributive Justice"
Oleg Atbashian - 2010
Atbashian explains why Socialism cannot work. He exposes the injustice of "Collective Greed" and shows why Economic Equality is a fraud. The book is an eye-opener as the author illustrates his points with examples drawn from his life in the Soviet Union before 1994 and more recent events in the USA. "Oleg Atbashian has written a timely warning for Americans about the collectivists among us and their plans for the future. I hope everyone reads this book." -- David Horowitz, Author of One Party Classroom (2009) "In his brilliant, witty, and wonderfully illustrated Shakedown Socialism, Oleg Atbashian -- who grew up in the Soviet Union, shows what is happening in Obama's America today, and explains why it is putting us on the road to ruin. Shakedown Socialism is an enlightening, sobering, and wonderfully clear explanation of why statism kills -- and thus also of why and how Barack Obama is killing the American economy. This book shows why Obama's statist economic policies are a looming disaster for America and for the spirit of the free human individual." -- Pamela Geller, author, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War On America "Brightly written and filled with entertaining and illuminating illustrations, Oleg Atbashian's Shakedown Socialism is a clear and eye-opening guide to exactly what is wrong with socialism and state control of the means of production, and how it kills both the economy and human initiative. Shakedown Socialism is an essential and inspiring guide to the virtues of the free market." -- Robert Spencer, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad
The Zulu Principle
Jim Slater - 1992
His chief strengths are his uncanny ability to identify undervalued companies and his farsighted reading of the market trends. In this volume, Jim Slater makes available to the investor - whether the owner of only a few shares or an experienced investment manager with a large portfolio - the secret of his success. Central to his strategy is The Zulu Principle, the benefits of homing in on a relatively narrow area. Deftly blending anecdote and analysis, Jim Slater gives valuable selective criteria for buying dynamic growth shares, turnarounds, cyclicals, shells and leading shares. He covers many other vitally relevant aspects of investment such as creative accounting, portfolio management, overseas markets and the investor's relationship with their broker. From The Zulu Principle you can learn exactly when to buy shares and, even more important, when to see - in essence, how to make extraordinary profits from ordinary shares.
How the Stock Market Works
Ramon P. DeGennaro - 2014
Professor DeGennaro uses simple analogies to explain the origin of stocks and other securities, as well as their relative risks. He stresses the danger of trying to beat the market by trying to pick winners, predict price trends, or otherwise find opportunities that other investors have missed. Far better, he counsels, to own a well-diversified portfolio of individual stocks or stock funds, which tend to grow as the economy grows. He offers detailed guidance on how to pursue this course.Among the topics covered in these 18 lectures are how to open a brokerage account and choose a financial advisor; the essentials of mutual funds, including index funds, and exchange traded funds (ETFs); how to trade individual stocks, including how to use options; the relative advantages of traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and 401(k) plans; how to minimize transaction costs and use tax laws for your benefit; the dangers of frequent trading; and the basics of corporate balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements.For anyone who owns stocks or is thinking of entering the market, this course provides indispensable advice. If you entrust the management of your assets to a financial advisor, this course will give you the background you need to communicate more knowledgeably with him or her and be an informed participant in your own financial well-being.Disclaimer: Please note that this recording may include references to supplemental texts or print references that are not essential to the program and not supplied with your purchase.©2014 The Great Courses (P)2014 The Teaching Company, LLC
Who Ate My Cheese?: The Road to Freedom
Rowland Rose - 2013
No reader will remain indifferent, and certainly he will discover himself in one or another of the characters, or will find in them similarities to persons that he knows. There are four protagonists in this story: Two giants, George and Robert, and a pair of enormous pigs, Miles and Torie. They represent the mirror image of a confused and convulsive society that exists out of place among the changes that occur at breakneck speed. This extreme situation in which we now find ourselves is the result of wrongheaded political, social and economic policies, and of letting others control the destiny of our lives. We can behave like any one of them. We can decide to be pigs or giants, to live free or be trapped, to discover ourselves or hide behind the manipulation of the maze.
Corporate Finance for Dummies
Michael Taillard - 2012
"Corporate Finance For Dummies" introduces you to the practices of determining an operating budget, calculating future cash flow, and scenario analysis in a friendly, un-intimidating way that makes comprehension easy."Corporate Finance For Dummies" covers everything you'll encounter in a course on corporate finance, including accounting statements, cash flow, raising and managing capital, choosing investments; managing risk; determining dividends; mergers and acquisitions; and valuation.Serves as an excellent resource to supplement coursework related to corporate financeGives you the tools and advice you need to understand corporate finance principles and strategiesProvides information on the risks and rewards associated with corporate finance and lendingWith easy-to-understand explanations and examples, "Corporate Finance For Dummies" is a helpful study guide to accompany your coursework, explaining the tough stuff in a way you can understand.