Infectious Greed: How Deceit And Risk Corrupted The Financial Markets (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
Took me a while to read this one, but ended up really enjoying it for what it is: an extremely detailed and well-researched history of the use of financial derivatives from the 1980's through the collapse of Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing in 2000/01. Of course, the story of the book continues past it's conclusion, with the culmination of the world financial crisis in 2007/08. This book sets the table well for that episode. What I particularly appreciated was that the author named names - not just of CEOs or wrongdoers that were in the public eye, but of the unknown folks who were in the trenches and developed (or were suckered by) many of the derivative products which became the darling of financiers worldwide. The author can't tell a story as well as Michael Lewis, but he makes up for it through his depth of research.
So far so good. The $ values involved are over whelming and it certainly seems very hard to justify the amount of renumeration paid for the lack of tangible benefit created. But then that is the point the book is trying to make. I had no idea of how oddly some interest rates were calculated or how arbitrary the formulas used could be. It is quite a big book but oddly enough not overly wordy. I got lost in a few places in regards to who is who and how they were related to some of the institutions.And now the book has been read.. Does greed have any limits? I guess not when people want to always have more than the next person.
What do You think about Infectious Greed: How Deceit And Risk Corrupted The Financial Markets (2004)?
