The intimate, fly-on-the wall tale of the decline and fall of an America icon
With one notable exception, the firms that make up what we know as Wall Street have always been part of an inbred, insular culture that most people only vaguely understand. The exception was Merrill Lynch, a firm that revolutionized the stock market by bringing Wall Street to Main Street, setting up offices in far-flung cities and towns long ignored by the giants of finance. With its “thundering herd” of financial advisers, perhaps no other business, whether in financial services or elsewhere, so epitomized the American spirit. Merrill Lynch was not only “bullish on America,” it was a big reason why so many average Americans were able to grow wealthy by investing in the stock market.
Merrill Lynch was an icon. Its sudden decline, collapse, and sale to Bank of America was a shock. How did it happen? Why did it happen? And what does this story of greed, hubris, and incompetence tell us about the culture of Wall Street that continues to this day even though it came close to destroying the American economy? A culture in which the CEO of a firm losing $28 billion pushes hard to be paid a $25 million bonus. A culture in which two Merrill Lynch executives are guaranteed bonuses of $30 million and $40 million for four months’ work, even while the firm is struggling to reduce its losses by firing thousands of employees.
Based on unparalleled sources at both Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, Greg Farrell’s Crash of the Titans is a Shakespearean saga of three flawed masters of the universe. E. Stanley O’Neal, whose inspiring rise from the segregated South to the corner office of Merrill Lynch—where he engineered a successful turnaround—was undone by his belief that a smooth-talking salesman could handle one of the most difficult jobs on Wall Street. Because he enjoyed O’Neal’s support, this executive was allowed to build up an astonishing $30 billion position in CDOs on the firm’s balance sheet, at a time when all other Wall Street firms were desperately trying to exit the business. After O’Neal comes John Thain, the cerebral, MIT-educated technocrat whose rescue of the New York Stock Exchange earned him the nickname “Super Thain.” He was hired to save Merrill Lynch in late 2007, but his belief that the markets would rebound led him to underestimate the depth of Merrill’s problems. Finally, we meet Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, a street fighter raised barely above the poverty line in rural Georgia, whose “my way or the highway” management style suffers fools more easily than potential rivals, and who made a $50 billion commitment over a September weekend to buy a business he really didn’t understand, thus jeopardizing his own institution.
The merger itself turns out to be a bizarre combination of cultures that blend like oil and water, where slick Wall Street bankers suddenly find themselves reporting to a cast of characters straight out of the Beverly Hillbillies . BofA’s inbred culture, which perceived New York banks its enemies, was based on loyalty and a good-ol’-boy network in which competence played second fiddle to blind obedience.
Crash of the Titans is a financial thriller that puts you in the theater as the historic events of the financial crisis unfold and people responsible for billion of dollars of other people’s money gamble recklessly to enhance their power and their paychecks or to save their own skins. Its wealth of never-before-revealed information and focus on two icons of corporate America make it the book that puts together all the pieces of the Wall Street disaster.
發表於2024-12-25
Crash of the Titans 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
除瞭一個明顯的例外,構成我們所知的華爾街的那些公司,一直以來都是一種自成一體、與世隔絕的文化的一部分,大多數人對這種文化隻有模糊的理解。唯一的例外是美林證券公司,這傢公司通過將華爾街引入大眾市場,在金融巨頭長期忽視的偏遠城鎮設立辦事處,徹底改變瞭股票市場。...
評分除瞭一個明顯的例外,構成我們所知的華爾街的那些公司,一直以來都是一種自成一體、與世隔絕的文化的一部分,大多數人對這種文化隻有模糊的理解。唯一的例外是美林證券公司,這傢公司通過將華爾街引入大眾市場,在金融巨頭長期忽視的偏遠城鎮設立辦事處,徹底改變瞭股票市場。...
評分除瞭一個明顯的例外,構成我們所知的華爾街的那些公司,一直以來都是一種自成一體、與世隔絕的文化的一部分,大多數人對這種文化隻有模糊的理解。唯一的例外是美林證券公司,這傢公司通過將華爾街引入大眾市場,在金融巨頭長期忽視的偏遠城鎮設立辦事處,徹底改變瞭股票市場。...
評分除瞭一個明顯的例外,構成我們所知的華爾街的那些公司,一直以來都是一種自成一體、與世隔絕的文化的一部分,大多數人對這種文化隻有模糊的理解。唯一的例外是美林證券公司,這傢公司通過將華爾街引入大眾市場,在金融巨頭長期忽視的偏遠城鎮設立辦事處,徹底改變瞭股票市場。...
評分除瞭一個明顯的例外,構成我們所知的華爾街的那些公司,一直以來都是一種自成一體、與世隔絕的文化的一部分,大多數人對這種文化隻有模糊的理解。唯一的例外是美林證券公司,這傢公司通過將華爾街引入大眾市場,在金融巨頭長期忽視的偏遠城鎮設立辦事處,徹底改變瞭股票市場。...
圖書標籤: 金融 金融危機 finance IBD 金融史 經濟學 歐債危機 曆史
四星半,文筆流暢,料很足,但如果編輯的再好點、沒那麼多重復、結構更完整、報道更公正些就更好瞭
評分四星半,文筆流暢,料很足,但如果編輯的再好點、沒那麼多重復、結構更完整、報道更公正些就更好瞭
評分好看的畢竟還是韆年不變的政治鬥爭。金融危機隻是作為催化劑,加速瞭各個族群間的吞噬和衍生。
評分起於風萍之末,止於草莽之間。比講貝爾斯登的house of cards 好瞭不止一個級彆,四星半。
評分好看的畢竟還是韆年不變的政治鬥爭。金融危機隻是作為催化劑,加速瞭各個族群間的吞噬和衍生。
Crash of the Titans 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載