Too Big to Fail

I think I'm done with reading books about the financial crises of 2008. Too Big To Fail, by New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, is a mega journalistic narrative that captures, blow by blow, the conversations, thoughts and actions that happened in the US Government, Federal Reserve, markets and Wall Street investment banks in the three months that financial armageddon hit the world. I finished the book late last night, and came away reasonably impressed.

On the whole, it is an interesting and very commendable piece of work, but not in the same class as, for example, Barbarians at the Gate. The insights that the book offers are many - the Goldman Sachs nexus within the US Government, the filial loyalties that Wall Streeters have to their firms, and the heroic efforts of Henry Paulson, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke to do something, anything to stave off the crisis.

Turns out that most of the measures taken by these gents only exacerbated the sorry state of affairs in the markets. But one cannot really fault these gents, who were really solving very very messy crises each single day.

At the end, one cannot help but feel a bit sorry for Lehman Brothers, Dick Fuld and its team of executives, who did nothing that everyone else did not do, but were singled out for punishment. Many say that this was because personal animosity between Fuld and Goldman Sachs, and circumstantial evidence certainly points in that direction.

What I liked about the book was the little back stories of the key players - Dick 'Gorilla' Fuld, Jamie Dimon, the real hero of the crisis, Gary Fleming et. cetera. The key lesson for me was that tough times dont last, tough guys do!!