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Essays on the Financial Crisis
- Systemic Greed and Arrogant Stupidity
- Narrated by: Tom Kruse
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
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Publisher's summary
The financial crisis that peaked in the United States during the fall of 2008 is an excellent case study of what can go wrong with leadership and corporate governance - in business, financial ethics, government regulation directed both at the firm level and at that of the financial system itself, and legal accountability for the culprits.
The collection begins with a series of essays on Lehman Brothers, with particular attention to its last CEO, Richard Fuld. Given the fraud surrounding sub-prime mortgage bonds at numerous banks, the second part of the collection looks at why legal accountability was so elusive in the United States. Weaknesses in the financial regulation, with particular attention to whether agencies had been captured by their respective regulated firms, comprises the third part. The fourth part examines the culpability of the Federal Reserve Bank, which had perhaps been too close to its regulated banks to anticipate the crisis.
The audiobook concludes with essays on why business ethics had been so very weak. The careful listener will take from the collection a sense that the financial system remained vulnerable even after government attempts to reduce the systemic risks of a big bank going under.
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Other People's Money
- The Real Business of Finance
- By: John Kay
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The finance sector of Western economies is too large and attracts too many of the smartest college graduates. Financialization over the past three decades has created a structure that lacks resilience and supports absurd volumes of trading. The finance sector devotes too little attention to the search for new investment opportunities and the stewardship of existing ones, and far too much to secondary-market dealing in existing assets. Regulation has contributed more to the problems than the solutions.
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Listened twice. Everyone must read this.
- By Tristan on 01-18-16
By: John Kay
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Why Wall Street Matters
- By: William D. Cohan
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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William D. Cohan is no knee-jerk advocate for Wall Street and the big banks. He's one of America's most respected financial journalists and the progressive best-selling author of House of Cards. He has long been critical of the bad behavior that plagued much of Wall Street in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and because he spent 17 years as an investment banker on Wall Street, he is an expert on its inner workings as well.
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An Inch Deep and A Mile Wide
- By Doug Sheridan on 04-26-17
By: William D. Cohan
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How the Other Half Banks
- Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy
- By: Mehrsa Baradaran
- Narrated by: Priya Ayyar
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The United States has two separate banking systems today - one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities - all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s.
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The Borrowers at the Fringe
- By Darwin8u on 09-13-16
By: Mehrsa Baradaran
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Economics for the Common Good
- By: Jean Tirole, Steven Rendell - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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When Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked to comment on issues of the day, no matter how distant from his own areas of research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect further on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics, far from being a "dismal science," is a positive force for the common good.
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A Great Overview of the Challenges of Modern Econ
- By Zach Sullivan on 08-06-18
By: Jean Tirole, and others
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Fool's Gold
- By: Gillian Tett
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Gillian Tett brings to life in gripping detail how the Morgan team's bold ideas for a whole new kind of financial alchemy helped to ignite a revolution in banking, and how that revolution escalated wildly out of control. The deeply reported and lively narrative takes readers behind the scenes, to the inner sanctums of elite finance and to the secretive reaches of what came to be known as the "shadow banking" world.
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Outstanding narrative about the financial crisis
- By D. Littman on 07-17-09
By: Gillian Tett
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Wall Street
- A History, Updated Edition
- By: Charles R. Geisst
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 27 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Wall Street is an unending source of legend - and nightmares. It is a universal symbol of both the highest aspirations of economic prosperity and the basest impulses of greed and deception. Charles R. Geisst's Wall Street is at once a chronicle of the street itself - from the days when the wall was merely a defensive barricade built by Peter Stuyvesant - and an engaging economic history of the United States, a tale of profits and losses, enterprising spirits, and key figures that transformed America into the most powerful economy in the world.
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Many books in one; best linking of stories, eras
- By Philo on 03-23-14
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Fault Lines
- How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World's Economy
- By: Raghuram Rajan
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed.
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A REAL SNOOZER
- By Frank on 12-02-10
By: Raghuram Rajan
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Fooling Some of the People All of the Time
- A Long Short Story
- By: David Einhorn
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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At its most basic level, Allied Capital is the story of Wall Street at its worst. But the story is much bigger than one little-known company. Fooling Some of the People All of the Time is an important call for effective law enforcement, free speech, and fair play.
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where's the epilogue?
- By James Klein on 02-02-11
By: David Einhorn
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The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve
- By: Peter Conti-Brown
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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The independence of the Federal Reserve is considered a cornerstone of its identity, crucial for keeping monetary policy decisions free of electoral politics. But do we really understand what is meant by "Federal Reserve independence"? Using scores of examples from the Fed's rich history, The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve shows that much common wisdom about the nation's central bank is inaccurate.
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Meandering, gossipy, a bit pop-journalistic
- By Philo on 10-03-16
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Moral Mazes
- The World of Corporate Managers
- By: Robert Jackall
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Jackall's Moral Mazes offers an eye-opening account of how corporate managers think the world works, and how big organizations shape moral consciousness. Based on extensive interviews with managers at every level of two industrial firms and of a large public relations agency, IMoral Mazes takes the reader inside the intricate world of the corporation.
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Well written; poorly narrated
- By C. Youngblood on 09-30-13
By: Robert Jackall