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 enlarge | Author: Mark Zandi
Publisher: FT Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $15.18
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Rating:  89 reviews
Sales Rank: 3094
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0137142900
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.7220973
EAN: 9780137142903
ASIN: 0137142900
Publication Date: July 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
 This book's so good, it gets Aaa rating! October 18, 2008
This book makes a strong case for the perils of irresponsible and premature deregulation, which allowed unscrupulous people to lie by omission. It seems as though the hands of the free markets and the governments veiled over the truth, not to be seen for a while. Now it's all out in the open. Zandi's list of ten policies that can help the financial turmoil should be read and acted on by those in power without delay.
Insightful Reference Book October 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In college macroeconomics class we were assigned "Only Yesterday", a book about the Great Depression, as a primer about financial crisis. This book is of a similar vein, and does an excellent job documenting what happened, and to a lesser extent, why. Even after spending most of my professional life in banking and the mortgage banking I learned a few things here and there.
I also like that he offers some specific recommendations at the end of the book targeted at preventing a similar crisis from reoccurring. Unfortunately, as we shall soon find out, he fails to generalize his recommendations so, for example, he does not see predatory lending as a specific issue in the broader context of usury law. I also think some of his recommendations are a bit optimistic. Unless we are willing to do on a national scale what Magic Johnson Enterprises did in educating prospective homeowners, there is little hope that well educated, well dressed loan officers, presenting well practiced sales pitches, will be overcome by personal restraint.
(Interestingly, MJE did NOT put people into WaMu's toxic OPTION ARMS. Perhaps that training represents a useful template to be emulated and rolled out on a national level. Too bad The Donald is more interested in duping people than educating them with his tacky late-night sales pitches)
I think it almost a certainty that we will have another calamity when people who are out of work begin defaulting on credit cards that have been stripped of any sane restrictions. In a Bush Administration sell-out to financial giants, while personal bankruptcy laws were toughened, usury laws are no longer federal, so now large credit card issuers can shop for friendly states like S, Dakota, who changed their state usury laws to allow the charging of ridiculous rates, in order to attract large employers to a small state. I guess Zandi would rather work on the text of his next book, than think on a larger, more general scale.
All-in-all, this is a great read and something to save for generations to come. Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
motivating October 16, 2008
My husband read this book and moved our investments out of the stock market just before the current instability. This book was a primary motivation for that move. Certainly gives lots of information to think about. A critical look at what is being done wrong and the possibly disasterous results. This book certainly benefited us.
Great insight to the Financial Crisis NOW October 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a well written, easy to follow book on the Subprime Mortgage catastrophe root causes and indicators. Mark Zandi is the chief financial guru behind Moodys.com - a leading investment research firm and stats provider.
The book is extremely recent, as it talked about the Lehman bankruptcy and Bears Stearns fallout from March 2008.
Also, it talks about the preparation for one of the largest government interventions into private sectors ever - and I believe this book was released in April 2008, not October 2008, hehehehe.
His insight and intellect is great and the ability for him to explain it in laymen's terms for me to understand makes it a great read.
I give this a 4 only because there was no thought into the graphs and they are pretty much worthless. The charts are shown in portrait mode instead of singularly in landscape mode on a single page so you can actually understand the chart. The legend uses slight degrees of grey to show some statistics, but in a black/white book, most of the varying levels look the same, hah. Then they try to show various housing densities for the entire US in a chart that's 2 inches by 3 inches in size, hehehe. As well as his firm is known for producing reports, I'm shocked he'd allow the useless charts in his book.
His thoughts on avoiding the next financial crisis is insightful as well, but could be summarized as...if everyone is doing it, if everyone is writing about it, if it is on the cover of a magazine, and if you see more shows about it, then sooner or later, what goes up must come down.
Common sense? Well, you don't start to apply it or realize it until it happens, but I absolutely see the trend for emerging markets and the commodities craze. I may ride that bandwagon for the upcoming years, but be mindful and not get caught up into a bubble about to burst. So thank you for this book, Mark Zandi!
 Too little, too early October 16, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
If the book had been written four months later, it may have been more relevant. It is a partial primer for college educated professionals and policy makers who want to understand the mechanisms behind the financial current crisis. However, it is missing a large chunk of recent events as well as the credit rating agencies' role in the crisis.
Most economists agree that the incestuous relationship between credit
ratings companies and bond issuers are a significant factor to the current economic meltdown. Being employed by Moodys, the author could not comment. The cup is about 1/4 full, and I recommend that you wait for a more unbiased opinion.
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