Books about the Great Financial Crisis (GFC)

Hi everyone.  I’m back after taken two months to complete my Risk Management Field Study.  It was a torture to go back to school.  I hope my write up is good enough to pass, thus I can really take a break from studies. Do I want to study again?  hmmm…

The other day I was reading something regarding the state of the economy, and an author coined the term Great Financial Crisis (GFC).  As all things, someone would always reduce whatever and however big or small the incident into an abbreviation, and thus you have the GFC.

A couple of months ago, I’ve decide to read up on the GFC.  And set out to buy a couple of books for the Finance Library.  I started with the biggest book I can find at MPH, with a catchy title, Too Big To Fail by eminent business author, Andrew Sorkin.  What a great read.  It chronicled the days leading up to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. 

I followed up with another book on the GFC, this time on the one story that signalled the start of the GFC – House of Cards by William D. Cohan.  This chronicled the collapse of Bear Stearns.  Another great read, though not as smooth reading, but nevertheless contains lots of behind the doors’ insight.

There are a couple more books I would like to get to, but alas, we live in Penang, where the bookstores sucks!  Ya, ya, you are thinking Amazon, but did you know the shipping cost more than the books itself?!

So I settled on a more economic book, Hoodwinked by John Perkins.  A VERY different kind of read.  A bonanza for those who love conspiracy theories.  What Perkins wrote was believable, which makes it even more scary!

My apologies as to skip my usual brief summary as the above books was read by me more than 2 months ago.  But what sticked in my mind was how greed and hubris (I learned a new word :) ) could lead to the downfall of even the smartest man on Wall Street.

These books are available in the library.