Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown

Business & Finance, Finance & Investing, Real Estate
Cover of the book Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown by Edmund L. Andrews, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Edmund L. Andrews ISBN: 9780393071283
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: May 22, 2009
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Edmund L. Andrews
ISBN: 9780393071283
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: May 22, 2009
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

The fiasco that sank millions of Americans, including one journalist, who thought he knew better.

A veteran New York Times economics reporter, Ed Andrews was intimately aware of the dangers posed by easy mortgages from fast-buck lenders. Yet, at the promise of a second chance at love, he succumbed to the temptation of subprime lending and became part of the economic catastrophe he was covering. In surprisingly short order, he amassed a staggering amount of debt and reached the edge of bankruptcy.

In Busted, Andrew bluntly recounts his misadventures in mortgages and goes one step further to describe the brokers, lenders, Wall Street players, and Washington policymakers who helped bring that money to his door. The result is a penetrating and often acerbic look at the binge and bust that nearly bankrupted the United States.

Enabled by know-nothing complacency in Washington, Wall Street wizards used "collateralized debt obligations," "conduits," and other inscrutable financial "innovations" to put American home financing into hyperdrive. Millions of Americans abandoned the safety of thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgages and loaded up on debt. While regulators insisted that the markets knew best, Wall Street firms fragmented and repackaged unsound loans into securities that the rating agencies stamped with triple-A seals of approval.

Andrews describes a remarkably democratic debacle that made fools out of people up and down the financial food chain. From a confessional meeting with Alan Greenspan to a trek through the McMansion bubble of the OC, he maps the arc of the Frankenstein loans that brought the American economy to the brink.

With on-the-ground reporting from the frothiest quarters of the crisis, Andrews locates what is likely to be the high-water mark in America's long-term embrace of higher borrowing, higher risk-taking, and the fervent belief in the possibility of easy profits.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The fiasco that sank millions of Americans, including one journalist, who thought he knew better.

A veteran New York Times economics reporter, Ed Andrews was intimately aware of the dangers posed by easy mortgages from fast-buck lenders. Yet, at the promise of a second chance at love, he succumbed to the temptation of subprime lending and became part of the economic catastrophe he was covering. In surprisingly short order, he amassed a staggering amount of debt and reached the edge of bankruptcy.

In Busted, Andrew bluntly recounts his misadventures in mortgages and goes one step further to describe the brokers, lenders, Wall Street players, and Washington policymakers who helped bring that money to his door. The result is a penetrating and often acerbic look at the binge and bust that nearly bankrupted the United States.

Enabled by know-nothing complacency in Washington, Wall Street wizards used "collateralized debt obligations," "conduits," and other inscrutable financial "innovations" to put American home financing into hyperdrive. Millions of Americans abandoned the safety of thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgages and loaded up on debt. While regulators insisted that the markets knew best, Wall Street firms fragmented and repackaged unsound loans into securities that the rating agencies stamped with triple-A seals of approval.

Andrews describes a remarkably democratic debacle that made fools out of people up and down the financial food chain. From a confessional meeting with Alan Greenspan to a trek through the McMansion bubble of the OC, he maps the arc of the Frankenstein loans that brought the American economy to the brink.

With on-the-ground reporting from the frothiest quarters of the crisis, Andrews locates what is likely to be the high-water mark in America's long-term embrace of higher borrowing, higher risk-taking, and the fervent belief in the possibility of easy profits.

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book 21st Century Capitalism by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book The Genuine Article: A Historian Looks at Early America by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book The Burning Girl: A Novel by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book Is Life Like This?: A Guide to Writing Your First Novel in Six Months by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book In the Valley of the Kings: Stories by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book The Human Right to Health (Norton Global Ethics Series) by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book Tularosa: A Kevin Kerney Novel (Kevin Kerney Novels) by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book Judas: A Biography by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book Different Hours: Poems by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book The Anatomy School by Edmund L. Andrews
Cover of the book Harvest: Field Notes from a Far-Flung Pursuit of Real Food by Edmund L. Andrews
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy