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  • Too Big to Fail

  • The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves
  • Written by: Andrew Ross Sorkin
  • Narrated by: William Hughes
  • Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (72 ratings)

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Too Big to Fail cover art

Too Big to Fail

Written by: Andrew Ross Sorkin
Narrated by: William Hughes
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Publisher's Summary

The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System - and Themselves

A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times reporter. Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true, behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami.

From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego and greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world's economy.

"We've got to get some foam down on the runway!" a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the then-president of the Federal Reserve of New York, would tell Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, about the catastrophic crash the world's financial system would experience. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail re-creates all the drama and turmoil, revealing neverdisclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle.

This true story is not just a look at banks that were "too big to fail"; it is a real-life thriller with a cast of bold-faced names who themselves thought they were too big to fail.

©2009 Andrew Ross Sorkin (P)2009 Penguin Audiobooks

What the critics say

"Andrew Ross Sorkin pens what may be the definitive history of the banking crisis." ( The Atlantic Monthly)
"Andrew Ross Sorkin has written a fascinating, scene-by-scene saga of the eyeless trying to march the clueless through Great Depression II." (Tom Wolfe)

What listeners say about Too Big to Fail

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  • 2018-12-15

Very interesting story. Good narrator. Chapters were mixed up though which made the story hard to follow.

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Taxpayers own the banks? Where's our dividends?

I have been fascinated with the financial crash of 2008. I was 17 at the time, just starting to figure out who I wanted to be when my life was affected by the destabilization of the markets. I took an unhealthy interest in why the crash happened and how I could assure myself that I would be prepared for any and all economic downturns.

Too Big To Fail was brilliantly written and did an impeccable job of giving us an inside look at the negotiations that kept our economy alive.

What infuriates me to this day is how the taxpayers were the ones to bail out these funds that are run by selfish, immature, spoiled brats. The sad part is, these men and women running these institutions are still out there, playing their games and if history has proved anything, the taxpayers, the blue collar workers, the middle class, the ones who keep this world moving will be bailing out these goods again and again.

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