Michael Lewis offers a critical look at the financial collapse of 2008 and reveals how the American economy shot itself in the foot. With cynical wit and humor, Lewis exposes the bungling villains who steered the economy toward a recession and chronicles the harrowing attempts of a few hopeless heroes who foresaw this tragedy. "Narrator Jesse Boggs has a pleasant, informative voice that conveys the book's ideas..."--AudioFile "Boggs's rich baritone...

This surprising narrative goes back more than twenty years to reveal, in rich, anecdotal detail, how Wall Street, the mortgage industry, and the government conspired to change the way Americans bought their homes, creating a perfect storm. The authors take us inside elusive institutions such as Goldman Sachs, AIG, and Fannie Mae, to reveal who changed the game and why.

"Steven A. Cohen is a Wall Street legend. Born into a middle class family in a decidedly upper class suburb on Long Island, he was unpopular in high school and unlucky with girls. Then he went off to Wharton, and in 1992 launched the hedge fund SAC Capital, which grew into a $15 billion empire. He cultivated an air of mystery and reclusiveness -- at one point, owned the copyright to almost every picture taken of him -- and also of extreme excess,...

"As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us." In this book the author offers a scathing assessment of fiscal blunders in foreign lands, and details how economic repercussions are sure to be felt on American soil. Financial bubbles grew and burst, not only in the U.S. but in countries as diverse as Iceland, Germany, and Greece. Mixing humor with prescient insight, he depicts a precarious situation that demands attention. The tsunami of...

An ex-Wall Street trader improved on "Moneyball's" famed sabermetrics to place bets that would beat the Vegas odds on Major League Baseball games--with a 41 percent return in his first year. "Trading Bases" explains how he did it.

Explains why capitalism's global crisis persists, why bank bailouts and austerity policies fail, and why deepening economic inequality now generates historic social tensions and conflicts and worsens the ongoing crisis.

"In 2008, America went through a terrible financial crisis, and we are still suffering the consequences. Families lost their homes, had to give up their pets, and struggled to pay for food and medicine. Businesses didn't have money to buy equipment or hire and pay workers. Millions of people lost their jobs and their life savings. More than 100,000 businesses went bankrupt ... [Former FDIC chairman Bair] describes the many ways in which a broken system...

As Jeff Madrick makes clear, the single-minded pursuit of huge personal wealth has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970s, led by a few individuals who argue that self-interest guides society more effectively than community concerns. In telling the stories of these politicians, economists, and financiers who declared a moral battle for freedom but instead gave rise to an age of greed, Madrick traces the lineage of some of our nation's...

"James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, which sold approximately 36K copies, returns with a new book exploring the looming collapse of the techno-industrial economy, featuring profiles of individuals who have drastically altered their lives due to financial difficulties"--