House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street
A blistering narrative account of the negligence and greed that pushed all of Wall Street into chaos and the country into a financial crisis. At the beginning of March 2008, the monetary fabric of Bear Stearns, one of the world’s oldest and largest investment banks, began unraveling. After ten...
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A blistering narrative account of the negligence and greed that pushed all of Wall Street into chaos and the country into a financial crisis. At the beginning of March 2008, the monetary fabric of Bear Stearns, one of the world’s oldest and largest investment banks, began unraveling. After ten days, the bank no longer existed, its assets sold under duress to rival JPMorgan Chase. The effects would be felt nationwide, as the country suddenly found itself in the grip of the worst financial mess since the Great Depression. William Cohan exposes the corporate arrogance, power struggles, and deadly combination of greed and inattention, which led to the collapse of not only Bear Stearns but the very foundations of Wall Street.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780767930895 (0767930894)
Publish date: February 9th 2010
Publisher: Anchor
Pages no: 608
Edition language: English
Heard an interview with the author. Interesting detail: Compensation at Bear Stearns was based on a ratio of how much money they made using the least amount of capital. So even when things started to go bad, they were reluctant to take offers of capital from outside. Hence they refusal of the offe...