This is one of the best books of the 30 or so I have read about the financial crisis. Bob Ivey explains, how the large Wall Street firms committed fraud before the crash, by lowering the underwriting standards of mortgages, to continue to produce mortgage backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO) to sell to pension funds and investors.
The author, Bob Ivry, points out a number of anecdotal situations where bankers and financiers have neglected or abused their responsibilities to the public by being greedy and avaricious in their pursuit of the almighty dollar. However, I do think his investigative work and results would have been improved by avoiding a great deal of his cutsy and snide remarks when he put them in this book.
If you thought the banks, Wall Street, and DC were treating you like something on the bottom of the outhouse, you're right. Ivry, in clear prose, recapitulates the events of the crash and skewers the perpetrators…most of whom are still in positions of power and regrettably not in jail.
Well worth the money. It's also good to be able to understand the gov.
Love the honesty of the author. We need the inside story.
Bob Ivry brings us right to the crux of the matter. The sins of Wall Street which brought us to the brink of a worldwide depression have not been addressed.
While Ivry and Bloomberg are to be thanked and admired for having the courage to call a spade a spade, he missed what is at the center of the debt problem, namely, the fact that Federal Reserve banks don’t print and lend money. They only create purchasing power in the form of a line of credit.
Very Good book. Probably the best i have read on the 2008 crisis and what has happened since.
Ivry's book is important because it's the sequel to all the financial-meltdown books (I've read two dozen of those). It shows that not much has changed and the banks are still finding ways to play games.
