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And Then the Roof Caved In: How Wall Street's Greed and Stupidity Brought Capitalism to Its Knees | 
 enlarge | Author: David Faber
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
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Rating:  68 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0470474238
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.63240973
EAN: 9780470474235
Publication Date: June 22, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780470474235 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
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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Showing reviews 1-5 of 68
 Credit Crisis 2008 LITE January 19, 2010
C. V. Waldorf (Aix En Provence, France)
This book reads like a personal memoir of the credit crisis, and as such lends color and depth to several episodes that Faber witnessed from his front row seat at his network. It provides a timeline and touches on most of the issues central to the crisis. The book is an entertaining and very quick read or listen. Credit to the author for a cogent and concise description of credit default swaps(CDS's), collateralized debt obligations(CDO's), and, most importantly, synthetic CDO's. I like David Faber. I think he has maintained a high degree of journalistic integrity even as his `Old Guard' network colleagues have gone in a different direction and that integrity is evident in this book.
This book is, however, disappointing on a number of important points:
Alan Greenspan. Every crisis needs a culprit and the more neat and tidy the assignation of blame, the more popular the scapegoat will be. I do not get the sense in reading this book that Faber is among the most rabid of Greenspan bashers, but as a reporter, I expected a more thoughtful account of his unique encounters with the former Fed Chair. `The muffin encounter' , Chapter 4, illustrates well the cult of Greenspan that arose during the heady years of his tenure. The investigative reporter might have questioned the reasonableness of this cult of worshipers turning into an angry mob calling for the chairman's head, maybe identifying an overshoot of negative sentiment just as there had been an excess of enthusiasm in the boom years.
Were he to do so, Faber might see beyond the pat reasoning where the fed's failure to regulate an out of control mortgage market distribution system is the proximate cause of the bubble. This view is naïve in the extreme and one of the more disappointing aspects of an otherwise comprehensive survey. There is room for a substantial debate on the reasonableness of how tighter regulation might have helped the US avoid the crisis--Faber lays out many of the reasons why this would not have worked--but a nagging question presents itself, If tighter regulation of the mortgage market was the fix as Faber suggests, why has it not been implemented since the crash. Moreover, why is the current chief regulators and politicians not only not enacting tighter mortgage market regulation, preferring, as Greenspan did, to allow the markets to self regulate this issue, but instead moving in tandem to urge banks to lend and lend some more. Greenspan is getting a bad rap for not doing what his successor is not willing to do now, and that is because it would not have worked then and it would be counter productive now. As Faber recounts of his interview with Greenspan, and I paraphrase, `Is it really necessary to legislate against practices which are decidedly contrary to sound business practices?' And if the answer is yes, even in retrospect, then the real story lies in identifying the source of this paradox and the moral hazard it implies. Faber's treatment of this truth is downright derisory.
Faber describes the evaporation of risk premium in the market, but not in the context of the dilemma facing the fed in the years leading up to the crisis. Greenspan's "conundrum", the once famous now forgotten phenomenon does not figure into Faber's presentation, and nothing could be more central to the story. Current rationale a reduction of risk premium as measured by yield spreads are symptomatic of that deflationary forces, which in turn are best combated through an easing of monetary policy and general liquidity suggest the Greenspan's approach was correct or at least in keeping with the mode, and that his mistake was in not appreciating the scale of the problem. Faber should have at least given him credit for that.
AIG and Hank Greenberg. This treatment was a little disappointing particularly since Faber spent so much time reporting on this story. Spitzer made sure that Greenberg would be punished for his misdemeanors, while his successors Sullivan and Willemsted, as well as all of the shareholders of AIG, would be punished for his felonies. I kept hoping Faber some of the more salient issues surrounding AIG and their role in the early stages of the crisis. When did AIG begin writing credit default swaps? What was the total liability of these contracts, real or notional, at the time Greenspan departed? How were the premiums booked? How were the reserves established before mark to market was implemented? Did these contracts and the accounting have anything to do with AIG's superior performance over the period of time leading up to Greenberg's departure, particularly given the low interest rate environment and the soft insurance rate environment? There is a story there and Faber seems to have left that for another book.
I recommend this book as a very accessible, at times colloquial review of the credit crisis of 2008. More comprehensive and academic accounts include When Markets Collide by Mohammed El Arian and Animal Spirits by George A. Akerlof and Robert Shiller.
 Any business library needs this October 15, 2009
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
AND THEN THE ROOF CAVED IN: HOW WALL STREET'S GREED AND STUPIDITY BROUGHT CAPITALISM TO ITS KNEES tells of the realities behind the current economic crisis, detailing what happened to cause the greatest economic collapse since the Depression. It comes from an award-winning correspondent who has covered Wall Street for over two decades and is packed with firsthand accounts of the bankers who have contributed so heavily to this disaster. Any business library needs this.
GREAT, GREAT BOOK! DAVID FABER IS GENIUS! October 9, 2009
INVESTOR IN OC (ORANGE COUNTY CA.)
The BEST book EVER written on how and why the real estate market collapsed. Easy to read and understand. David Faber made it a pleasure to read about such a high stakes and difficult subject. Worth it at any price.
 The economic collapse explained by prticipants small and large October 4, 2009
andris virsnieks (Seattle, WA USA)
David Faber uses personal stories (photos included, he is a TV person after all) to explain the basics of this economic collapse. Like many other books on this subject this one also makes it clear that this great collapse could not have occurred if numerous parts of the economic system (critical institutions and key people) had not done the wrong thing at the wrong time (for greed or not to lose market share to the greedy).
The title of the book places most of the blame on Wall street, but inside the book the blame seems to shift more to the one person who could have popped the bubble, Alan Greenspan. Allen Greenspan "... didn't fully appreciate the nature of the risk." (page 169).
However, earlier in the book the author seems to provide Dr. Greenspan with an excuse by writing in effect that: "September Eleventh caused the Fed Chairman to engineer low interest rates and thus save the subprime business from oblivion" (oblivion at that time would have stopped the cancer at an early stage). And as for Fannie and Freddie, Mr. Faber classifies them as "Enablers". "Fannie and Freddie did not promulgate the current crisis. Wall Street did." (the degradation of standards at financial rating agencies is considered here, I assume, to be part of Wall Street activity).
David Faber does seem to suggest that the severity of this painful economic collapse could have been at least minimized if politically powerful people like Barney Frank were fanatical fiscal conservatives and not the opposite.
 A major disappointment October 3, 2009
David T. Grogan (Thailand)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ten pages of useful, insightful observations and explanations crammed into a 180 page book. Apparently in an attempt to pad the effort with more than the plentiful repetitive statements of the obvious that seem to be Faber's forte, the book is also awash with black and white photos most of which are murky, muddy and pointless, serving no other purpose than to show David Faber in the company of the cast of insignificant characters he has assembled to tie the story line together. Captions for two of the many photos include:" Mike Beuscher Shows Me a Future Breeding Ground for Mosquitoes," and " Mike Buescher's License Plate." If you're at a loss as to what mosquitoes and license plates have to do with the collapse of capitalism, it's not just you ... believe me.
Remember in school when you had to write a ten page report and could only come up with 6 pages? You added charts & pictures and used bigger page margins. It seldom impressed your teacher, but evidently John Wiley presents a lower hurdle to its authors and their eccentricities.
At times, David Faber, known on CNBC as The Brain, struggles with the English language, neither coming away the better for the experience. There are numerous examples of run-on sentences and non-sentences in some chapters while other chapters seem better written and organized. Assuming John Wiley still employs editors and proof readers, one can only speculate on their familiarity with the mother tongue.
"Standards that just might have averted the greatest financial crisis of our time." Anyone spot a verb?
"He's a tall, pleasant-looking middle-aged fellow who makes his living clearing out homes after they have been foreclosed on, shattering the dreams of those who reached for a better life, even if they knew it couldn't last." Wow. It was a dark and stormy night, indeed.
"After speaking to colleagues of O'Neil's who ..." What is a "who" and why does it have colleagues speaking to David Faber?
"... like so many other financial products invented by people who really liked math in school, the CDO was a harmless three-lettered security when it made its debut in 1987." That's why he's called The Brain folks. No wonder most people watch CNBC with the sound off.
While at times he seems to have a fairly reasonable view of the greedy, self-serving people who created the mess, he still comes up with such gems as : " None of these people were bad. They were doing their best to provide for their families." I'm sure the same could be said for Attila the Hun, but one wonders if the millions of dollars they pocketed to keep the wolf from their own doors warranted the cost to their victims.
Describing Sheila Bair: "...someone whose mouth is doing all it can to keep up with the complex thoughts that are coming from her brain."
Possibly David suffers from the same problem with his writing that Bair allegedly has with her mouth. This is an important topic and, given Faber's supposed inside track with all the movers and shakers on Wall Street, one would have thought we would have been told more about what was going on at that level. Possibly that will appear in a sequel.
Decidedly disappointing treatment of an important subject and at the same time it exposes Faber for the trite, childish writer I would never have expected he was.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 68
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