About this title: In this superb and shocking narrative, Cohan chronicles the fall of Bear Stearns and the end of the Second Gilded Age on Wall Street. Cohan's minute-by-minute account of 10 days in March 2008, tells a chilling cautionary tale about greed, arrogance, and stupidity in the financial world, and the consequences for all of us.
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Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. Former Library book. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Edition: Hardcover
Binding: Very Good
Publisher: Doubleday, New York
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780385528269ISBN:0385528264
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Hardcover Nonfiction. Signed. Yes Business: The story behind the market escesses that lay behind the financial collapse of 2008, in excellent condition. Signed and inscribed ("To Gregory") on the first tp and in excellent condition. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN-13:9780385528269ISBN:0385528264
Description: Used in Good jacket. Good dust jacket with light edge wear and scuffing. Stated First Edition with full number line on title page. Slight rubbing and bumping damage to corners and edges. This book is boxed and ship via USPS with delivery confirmation. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday
Date Published: 2009-03-10
ISBN-13:9780385528269ISBN:0385528264
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780385528269. read more
Binding: Spoken Word MP3-CD
Publisher: Tantor Media Inc
Date Published: 2009-04-06
ISBN-13:9781400161683ISBN:1400161681
Description: NEW. Spoken Word MP3-CD. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781400161683. read more
Binding: Audio CD
Publisher: Tantor Media
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781400161683ISBN:1400161681
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Thorndike Pr
Date Published: 2009-08-19
ISBN-13:9781410418357ISBN:1410418359
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781410418357. read more
"Wow, what a book! Cohan takes you through the last 10 days of the investment banking giant Bear Stearns. Just before its collapse Bear was the fifth largest IB in the world but excessive greed, risky and arrogant CEOs and rumor brought this 85 year old institution down to its knees. This is a very gripping story, one that even if you are not familiar with many things financial, has been written such that all readers will comprehend what many opine as the starting of the world recession. Cohan himself was an investment banker and is able to write with a great wealth of Wall St knowledge, an insider who has stepped back to review what was happening.
It was most interesting to me to see the butterfly effect of rumor that took its toll on Bear. They were completely liquid, albeit 35x levergaed, at the beginning of March. Once rumors started against Bear and about their ability to weather the mortgage backed securities and other things that were on their balance sheet, that is when the counterparties stopped trading. I am constantly wondering how much rumor had to do with the entire onset of the baniking crisis after having read parts of this book.
In the end, Bear was sold for around $10/share to JPMorgan and someone (his name escapes me) stated that JPMorgan paid less for Bear Stearns than the Yankees paid for A-Rod."
"George W. Bush reportedly said of a proposed fix for the financial meltdown of 20008, "Why am I supporting a program I don't understand?" Whatever you may think of Bush's intellect and leadership, his remark is right on target in what it reveals about the complexity of the problem and the difficulty of arriving at solutions. Along with most of his fellow Americans, including many of those working on Wall Street and those supposedly regulating Wall Street, Bush found himself bewildered by the "sudden" collapse of the financial markets in 2008.
In House of Cards, William Cohan chronicles the collapse of Bear Stearns, the event that triggered "the calamitous financial meltdown of 2008." In doing so, Cohan also chronicles the financial meltdown itself, for it is true that the big brokerage houses, banks and other financial institutions were so interconnected that the system was like a giant house of cards held together by trust. Cohan explains how Bear Stearns got started, how it grew so big, the risks it took, what went wrong, and its unavailing efforts to save itself. Quite a bit of somewhat arcane and technical material is included, but this story is one that is simply impossible to tell simply. That having been said, Cohan does a great job of making an immensely complicated subject understandable.
For a person like myself, with curiosity about how the financial markets work and what went wrong, but with absolutely no background in this area, the book was sometimes quite difficult to follow and to understand. It's one of those books where you can understand every word in many of the sentences, but their meaning still escapes you. But that has more to do with my limitations and the incredibly hard to understand subject matter than with any deficiencies in Cohan's writing. Although I started out not knowing what hedge funds, asset-backed securities, Alt-A mortgages, subprime lending, margin calls, counterparties, mark-to-market accounting rules and the repo market were, by the end of the book I was able to dimly figure these things out as well as to gain some understanding of their role in creating the "toxic Ebola" that nearly wiped out the world's financial markets.
At times House of Cards struck me as tedious and boring, but at other times it was as suspenseful as any fiction thriller. And the tale it tells is almost as hard to believe as any work of improbable fiction. Although at times the going was rough, the read was well worth the effort."
"Inside saga of Bear Stearns's dazzling rise and dramatic, abrupt decline
The 2008 collapse of leading Wall Street investment house Bear Stearns showed the world just how rickety the global financial system had become. William D. Cohan tracks the firm's dizzying rise and rapid collapse. His access to Bear Stearns insiders is the book's strongest point. He offers a trenchant analysis of its decades-long rise and a definitive account of its final days. Cohan paints textured portraits of Bear's top people, though he isn't especially interested in translating their Wall Street jargon for lay readers. He lets his sources speak in their own patois. getAbstract recommends this book to business history buffs, investors and managers seeking perspective on a spectacular failure."
"The first part of this book is an interesting review of the last days of Bear. It is pretty clear, although could benefit from a few more details on some of the products.
The final parts of the book are reminiscent of the book of Exodus (in the bible, not Leon Uris'), with a long (long) (did I mention long?) story of Greenberg began Cayne begat ... blah blah.
I don't actually care, for example, which Bridge events Cayne attended.
After slogging through the entire book, I went back and reread the first part so I wouldn't be so miserable."
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