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House of cards : a tale of hubris and wretched excess on Wall Street /

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William D. Cohan's superb and shocking narrative chronicles the fall of Bear Stearns and the end of the Second Gilded Age on Wall Street, explaining how a combination of risky bets, corporate political infighting, lax government regulations and truly bad decision-making wrought havoc on the wor...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cohan, William D.
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Doubleday, [2009]
Edition:1st ed.
Subjects:
Bear, Stearns & Co.
Investment banking > United States.
Bank failures > United States.
Financial crises > United States.
Table of Contents:
  • I. HOW IT HAPPENED: TEN DAYS IN MARCH. The ultimate roach motel
  • The confidence game
  • "Bear Stearns is not in trouble!"
  • The run on the bank
  • The armies of the night
  • Feeding frenzy
  • Total panic
  • The price of moral hazard? Two dollars
  • The Fed comes to the rescue (after the bubble is over)
  • Mooning at the wake
  • New developments from hell
  • "We're the bad guys"
  • II. WHY IT HAPPENED: 85 YEARS. Cy
  • Ace
  • Jimmy May Day
  • Maimchinkel Malintz Anaynikal
  • The joy of mortgage-backed securities
  • "Bullies always cave"
  • The math whiz and the baseball star
  • "We're all going to a picnic and the tickets are 250 million dollars each"
  • The fish rots from the head
  • III. THE END OF THE 2ND GILDED AGE. The 10-in-10 strategy
  • Cayne CAPs Spector
  • Cioffi's bubble
  • "The entire subprime market is toast"
  • "If there's fraud, we're gonna pay"
  • A very stupid decision
  • Nashville
  • The Cayne Mutiny
  • Desperate times call for hare-brained schemes
  • The deluge.