Black Box Casino : How Wall Street's Risky Shadow Banking Crashed Global Finance

Description: Black Box Casino : How Wall Street's Risky Shadow Banking Crashed Global Finance. Review"First Reckless Endangerment and now it is Black Box Casino's turn to shine a bright light on the root causes of the mortgage meltdown. England, relying on decades of experience as a financial reporter and consummate research skills, documents how government housing policy, political expediency, and crony capitalism combined to cause the mortgage meltdown that nearly sank the world's economy."--Ed Pinto, Former Chief Risk Officer of Fannie MaeFrom the AuthorHere are a few excerpts from the book:Chapter 4The Race to the Bottom: In agreeing back in 1992 to thin capital requirements, a weak prudential regulatory scheme, a green light to run its own investment portfolios, and affordable housing goals that could steadily rise, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had inadvertently entered into a suicide pact. Along the way, however, a lot of people would get rich greasing the skids for their demise.Chapter 6Wall Street's Subprime CDO Mania: Collateralized debt obligations were extremely complex and opaque. Like too many other instruments and entities in the financial markets, they had become black boxes to regulators, to AAA investors, and to the public. Both the complexity and opaqueness should have been a red flag to any prudent investor by 2004. Yet, instead of winding down, the flow of funds into subprime CDOs was about to explode even more as demand prompted yet more innovations that turned CDOs into casinos -- black box casinos where only the most astute and informed could ascertain the considerable risks and reap the bountiful rewards that lurked there. Chapter 11Lehman Brothers: Earlier in the day, New York Fed general counsel Thomas Baxter had already told the Lehman team gathered at the New York Fed that Lehman should file for bankruptcy that night, Sunday, September 14, according to Harvey Miller, Lehman's outside bankruptcy counsel. If they did not declare bankruptcy, then Lehman would simply fail. Next Baxter asked the Lehman delegation to leave the New York Fed building. "We went back to the headquarters, and it was pandemonium up there -- it was like a scene from It's a Wonderful Life with the run on the savings and loan crisis," Miller called.Unlike the situation in the fictional town of Bedford Falls in the 1946 Frank Capra film classic, there was no wily rich wretch of a slumlord like Mr. Potter to guarantee the deposits in the town's only bank -- and then to take it over. Also, there was no idealistic young George Bailey to plea with depositors at the Bailey Building and Loan to remain calm. This was not going to have a happy ending.There were "paparazzi running around" and a protestor dressed "in a sort of a Norse god uniform with a helmet and a picket sign saying 'Down with Wall Street,'" Miller recalled. "There were hundreds of employees going in and out" of Lehman's office building at 745 Seventh Avenue at 49th Street. CNBC covered live the onslaught of employees milling around, some rushing in, others with frantic faces walking out, carrying cardboard boxes of personal items from their offices.For most employees at Lehman, their world was crumbling. Little did the rest of us know that a measure of our own fates was hanging in the balance late the Sunday night in the glare of the dazzling lights of Times Square.

Price: 22.46 USD

Location: Lancaster, South Carolina

End Time: 2025-01-02T10:07:36.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 USD