A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011
One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
The New York Times's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist reveals how the
financial meltdown emerged from the toxic interplay of Washington, Wall
Street, and corrupt mortgage lenders.
In Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson, the star business
columnist of The New York Times, exposes how the watchdogs who were
supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually
complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy.
Drawing on previously untapped sources and building on original research
from coauthor Joshua Rosner--who himself raised early warnings with the
public and investors, and kept detailed records--Morgenson connects the
dots that led to this fiasco.
Morgenson and Rosner draw back the curtain on Fannie Mae, the
mortgage-finance giant that grew, with the support of the Clinton
administration, through the 1990s, becoming a major opponent of
government oversight even as it was benefiting from public subsidies.
They expose the role played not only by Fannie Mae executives but also
by enablers at Countrywide Financial, Goldman Sachs, the Federal
Reserve, HUD, Congress, the FDIC, and the biggest players on Wall
Street, to show how greed, aggression, and fear led countless officials
to ignore warning signs of an imminent disaster.
Character-rich and definitive in its analysis, this is the one account
of the financial crisis you must hear.
