And Then the Roof Caved In: How Wall Street's Greed and Stupidity Brought Capitalism to Its Knees Review
Posted by
Clifford Powell
on 10/19/2011
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(More customer reviews)David Faber's new book, "And The The Roof Caved In," hit The New York Times best seller list for the first time this week. It debuted at an impressive #10.
I enjoyed the book. It's an easy read which, given the subject -- the credit and financial crises -- is not an easy thing to do. Given that his day job is a reporter for CNBC, Faber gets credit for not pulling too many punches when it comes to Wall Street. My guess is that the book's subtitle, How Wall Street's Greed And Stupidity Brought Capitalism To Its Knees, gave some of Faber's CNBC colleagues and the people he reports on a serious case of heartburn.
But saying I enjoyed Faber's book and recommending it to others are two different things. The book is based on a 90 minute program -- "House of Cards" -- CNBC first aired in February. The book reads like a TV script (try to imagine Faber doing the voice over with the text of his book) with short chapters that appear to mimic the segments in the show. The still pictures in the book are from the program. And while the book does goes into more detail on some subjects than the program (after all, it doesn't have moving pictures to tell stories), it's still largely at TV-audience depth, that is to say at or just slightly below the surface.
I watched "House of Cards" again after reading the book and reconfirmed my initial thought that, instead of buying the book, you'd learn just about as much by watching it for free on Hulu or paying $4.99 to download it on iTunes. It's good TV and well worth the 90 minutes it will take to watch in it's entirety.
If you prefer reading to watching, try William Cohan's "House of Cards" --same title as the CNBC program but much richer content.
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CNBC's David Faber takes an in-depth look at the causes and consequences of the recent financial collapse
And Then the Roof Caved In lays bare the truth of the credit crisis, whose defining emotion at every turn has been greed, and whose defining failure is the complicity of the U.S. government in letting that greed rule the day. Written by CNBC's David Faber, this book painstakingly details the truth of what really happened with compelling characters who offer their first-hand accounts of what they did and why they did it.
Page by page, Faber explains the events of the previous seven years that planted the seeds for the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. He begins in 2001, when the Federal Reserve embarked on an unprecedented effort to help the economy recover from the attacks of 9/11 by sending interest rates to all time lows. Faber also gives you an up-close look at where the crisis was incubated and unleashed upon the world-Wall Street-and introduces you to insiders from investment banks and mortgage lenders to ratings agencies, that unwittingly conspired to insure lending standards were abandoned in the head long rush for profits.
Based on two years of research, this book provides deep background into the current credit crisis
Offers the insights of experienced professionals-from Alan Greenspan to prominent bankers and regulators-who were on the front lines
Created by David Faber, the face of morning business news on CNBC, and host of the network's award winning documentaries
From regulators who tried to stop this problem before it swung out of control to hedge fund managers who correctly foresaw the coming housing crash and profited from it, And Then the Roof Caved In shows you how the crisis we currently face came to be.
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