Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown |  | Author: Edmund L. Andrews
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $4.12
as of 7/31/2010 20:59 CDT details
You Save: $21.83 (84%)
New (47) Used (59) Collectible (1) from $3.28
Seller: horizonbb
Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 331150
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 220
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 1
ISBN: 0393067947
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.720973
EAN: 9780393067941
ASIN: 0393067947
Publication Date: May 22, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780393067941 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
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. .
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 44
 Surprisingly refreshing April 6, 2010
N. Tuzov (Illinois, USA)
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book is surprisingly refreshing against the background of more renowned sources of economic analysis such as The Economist. I suspect that many financial columnists are no better experts than Mr. Andrews, but, to disguise that, they infuse their articles with annoying swarms of ifs, buts, and maybes. Another issue is that many journalists might not be allowed to speak ill of certain financial institutions and individuals, even those who deserve all the insult they can get. To his credit, Mr. Andrews does none of that smoke-blowing.
A good part of the book is dedicated to the issue of market regulation, which turned out of most interest to me. There is no doubt that Greenspan and other regulators have had a real difficulty with identifying asset bubbles. If that had been otherwise, they would've been successful hedge fund managers as opposed to relatively low-paid regulators. Moreover, even professional money managers who realize that the assets are way overpriced, find it difficult to go against the flow. To fend off impatient investors and/or maintain a losing position on margin, one has to be able to guess the bubble peak with a few months accuracy, which is far from simple. For instance, Stock Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Stock Traders contains an interview with a trader who lost by shorting Internet stocks during the dotcom bubble because his timing was off. A more successful example of Michael Burry (see The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine) who managed to cash in on the mortgage collapse is an exception that only confirms the rule: as a contrarian, Burry got much abuse from his investors while he was losing and little gratitude when he succeeded. As Keynes used to say, for a money manager it is a lot more preferable to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.
Andrews describes Greenspan as a firm believer in the "self-correcting power of free markets", which I find very odd. How can a person old enough to remember the default of Confederate bonds believe in something like that? Naturally, one can always point to alleged lobbyism and corruption, but I think there is more than that: preventing calamities is a very ungrateful job because, by definition, its results are not observable. If an American statesman engages in it, he subscribes to getting flogged every single day for every political and economical downside of regulation. The upside, on the other hand, is illusory because it's impossible to prove that one has avoided a disaster, unless a time machine is at hand. If that's the case, then no wonder that Greenspan preferred to avoid being a dislikable risk cop. Stepping aside and cleaning up the mess once in a while is a much happier occupation.
One may argue that regulation is easily justified based on the historical experience, but remember that people's short memory and instant gratification bias are at the core of what happened. No doubt, in 2010 the support for regulation is broader than ever, but give it a few calm years and the talks of "self-correcting power of free markets" are likely to reappear.
In the end, both personal and financial gambles of Mr. Andrews proved disastrous. His book, however, is a much better investment. Buy it and you'll learn more about economy and subprime crisis than from reading a $90 worth of The Economist.
Is everyone else reviewing this book? Or reviewing whether they agree with the author's actions? August 17, 2009
Natalie D (Tampa, FL)
9 out of 20 found this review helpful
I just read Edmund Andrews's "Busted" and thought it was GREAT. I learned a lot about mortgages, mortgage companies and federal "regulatory" agencies and felt that, after finishing the book, I had a better understanding of the mechanics of the melt-down than before.
I also really enjoyed Mr. Andrews's personal story and felt that his sharing it was perhaps one of the most illuminating portions of the book. Realistically, there are more than a few places I can read about Option ARM morgages, FHA requirements and the role of the Fed in pumping the bubble (or at least failing to pop it). There is almost nowhere I can go to understand, really, how all of this happened.
Let's face it - the housing bubble can't be explained by people "not reading their mortgages." People's reading habits at closing didn't change dramatically between 2002 and 2004. The housing bubble was about real people, otherwise smart people, getting in over their heads. But I had yet to hear a good story about people who didn't have a medical emergency or job crisis, didn't consider the property an investment and the walking away a business decision, or weren't blatantly defrauded. I knew there must have been a lot of "normal" people who just, well, should never have been able to get a mortgage.
I consider the content of most of the negative reviews I just read akin to hating The Great Gatsby because you are against infidelity. Brilliant. Yes. I am against people being unfaithful just to have a good time. But it doesn't change the fact the The Great Gatsby is one of the classics of American literature. I can not agree with Mr. Andrews's spending decisions until I'm blue in the face, but they gave me a great understanding about how the country's great housing bubble occurred and, finally, how it popped - taking with is trillions of dollars in paper wealth.
I can't recommend this book enough and think its a must-read for anyone trying to really "get" how economically out-of-control the second Bush term was. And you can not like Mr. Andrews or his wife all you want - it doesn't mean that their story isn't important in the context of the housing and credit crises. And it certainly doesn't mean that Busted isn't a great read...
Very insightful book, give the guy a little slack about his wife! July 8, 2009
Richard Shafer (Oregon)
7 out of 22 found this review helpful
I read this whole book in an evening and found it very compelling. The big picture is about the fraudulent practices and outrageous prices of the various industries surrounding home ownership. I understand that Mrs. Edmund Andrews has filed for bankruptcy a second time, during the years covered in this story, and that Mr. Andrews didn't mention it. Give the guy a break - how much of your life and how many of your mistakes do you ever write a book about?
Mr. Andrews goes into detail about how he overstretched his budget quite knowingly to buy a house. It's a rather modest house that wouldn't have cost such a fortune without the incredible inflation of the era.
There is a lot more to tell here. First of all, he really did know better, but many people didn't. They just followed with the BS and did what they were told to do, and found themselves underwater. Do you remember the hype and conventional wisdom of just a few years ago? It really was compelling for many people. I didn't think it was sustainable but I always found myself in the minority in discussions about the topic. He discusses this toward the end of the book but does not really give it the attention it deserves.
What I think is the most important point in this whole discussion is that most of the people caught up in this crisis, from the Andrews family to the various homeowners he interviews, to everybody in America who bought a home this decade, is this: We just want a place to live, and the conspiracy of these corporations is making it impossible! It's not about living extravagantly for most people, it's about having a house to call home. Even rental prices have gotten outrageous in the decade as well, following far behind the cost of ownership but still costing too much for an average family to afford.
This book is very insightful and a very quick read. I wish people would get over the fact that he left out some important details about his family's financial life. For whatever reason, he uses the first person singular when discussing his family's decisions. I.e., he says "my" or "mine" instead of "our" or "ours", which seems to me like he's leaving his wife's responsibility to the wayside...but that's a broader cultural question. Obviously you can read all about his wife's bankruptcies on the internet, but in his book Mr. Andrews discusses enough of their private lives to illustrate the situation quite well.
Great book August 21, 2009
S. Bray
3 out of 15 found this review helpful
For those who read the book, whether you liked it or not, and posted reviews then thank you. However, I am astonished by the reviews of this book as I have read a lot of them. I can't believe that Amazon has reverted to people's personal agenda instead of how the book is really written. I would have to say that most of the reviewers haven't even read this book. How are we supposed to know if the book is a good read if people haven't even read it. So for those that like to read reviews to find out if a book is worth reading, this one really is. It is well written and very interesting of how a well educated man can even fall to these kinds of troubles.
As for the reviewers that haven't read the book and just thought to post something to be nasty, "get a life". You are ruining what amazon is all about, finding a good book to read. Please take your personal agenda's else where.
The bashing of this man of who came out to tell his story is horrible. I would like to see how many people in these reviews have credit card debt, which is virtually the same thing but not to the same extreme. If you have credit card debt then you couldn't afford what ever you bought, hence it is debt. No one is perfect and this man has certainly made big mistakes but now he is brave enough to face them. I hope he comes out of this with a positive attitude. This is a great book and people should read it.
The mortgage crisis personalized June 12, 2009
William J. Darusmont (San Francisco, CA)
7 out of 24 found this review helpful
I believe that by putting a face on the mortgage crisis, Andrews has provided the best insight yet into the problem. It is the most self-deprecating book I believe I have ever read.
Imagine being a respected economics reporter for the New York Times. You get a divorce (unlike some reviewers have commented this was not dumping wife number one for a trophy wife but a marriage long dead and finding again a woman he grew up with; you fall in love and do stupid things (he takes full responsibility for these, he does NOT asked to be bailed out, in fact he says he does not deserve to be bailed out; you are embarrased to have your peers, bosses, and even Alan Greenspan become aware of your situation; you write a book summoning all your reporting skills in economics and finance, and hopefully you bail yourself from your self-inflicted hell. Is there something wrong with that? No.
Andrews airs so much dirty laundry along the way that if it was my wife I would be in divorce court. This is the main value of this book, to show how financial matters, the leading cause of divorce, can destroy a family.
That could be the story but what about the greedy realtors, appraisers, loan originators, banks, brokers, etc. who pushed for more and more product of lesser quality and even found it more attractive the worse the credit was. In 37 years in banking and investments I have never witnessed this phenomenon. Worse yet, the rating agencies used flawed models to rate the securities AAA when they were nothing of the sort, and Congress and the regulatory bodies turned their heads and held their noses.
Within the mortgage industry there were a few good guys, not saints, but some who had limits to how low they would stoop...despite being pressured by Merrill Lynch to do so and then forced into bankruptcy for not complying.
But the worst thing, and Andrews goes to great length to describe it, is that he received one of the best subprime mortgages possibly because he was a white male while latinos, blacks, and women, across all income levels were given worse...in some cases confiscatory terms in subprime loans when many could have qualifed for prime mortages but were steered away from them.
He doesn't blame the Republicans, Democrats, bankers, or anyone else for this. That is for the reader to decide. True, there is blame to be spread all around but when some are taking out the loans but others are giving them loans just to make a profit knowing they will default and then selling them to others without recourse, someone should pay. Just as the credit card companies sent out unsolicited cards, even to people who had just filed bankruptcy, these predators convinced people they could afford a home and if they couldn't they fraudulently made them qualify.
It is this destruction of the American way of life...even the American dream that we will suffer from for years...perhaps decades.
I read this book in two evenings with my mind spinning because I knew many of the companies and people he talked about and was sickened at what they would do for personal gain. For this, our children and grandchildren will pay for years.
I hesititated to give it top rating only because of his failure to disclose his wife's two prior bankruptcies...for this one reviewer labeled her a paranha. The first was during her first marriage to a deadbeat dad who after their divorce did not pay his alimony or child support triggeering bankruptcy number two, until the state of California finally caught up with him...and you wonder why she filed for bankruptcy again? He told of enough of his shortcomings that I can forgive him for not wishing to further embarrass his wife, although he should have and he willingly admits and regrets this shortcoming.
It is young people who should read this book, hopefully so they learn how important financial matters are and how they can destroy even a strong relationship.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 44
|
|
|
