With clarity and a conversational style often (sometimes deliberately)
lacking in the financial industry and its coverage, British journalist
Lanchester (The Debt to Pleasure) takes readers on a comprehensive
global tour of 2008's economic meltdown, focusing on each guilty
parties' contributions to-and missed opportunities to halt-the worldwide
crisis. Starting with the political buildup and then marching through
the field of "banksters," regulators, mortgage companies and everyone
else in a position to know better, Lanchester illustrates exactly how
loans from predatory and incompetent players wound up being sold as
triple-A investments, and how a subsequent housing market dip toppled
the financial system. By prioritizing the financial sector and tenets
of laissez-faire capitalism (to the point that it "became a kind of
secular religion"), those in charge of the markets failed to identify
the growing systemic dangers; meanwhile, those responsible to the public
acted as if benefits for financial institutions also benefited every
economic participant, no matter how small. Laypeople seeking to
understand the crisis, and what it means for their own bank account,
will find Lanchester's volume an oasis of understanding in a sea of
partisan spin and convoluted financial language.

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