Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is an exceptionally well-written account, in detail that doesn't drown the reader, of the actions of the banking and financial industry that lead to the financial meltdown and subsequent economic contraction. If you have already constructed a good general grasp of the various components at work, Ms. Prins fills in the particulars with a flourish. She correctly points to this being a collapse of a man-made system, fueled by the standard mix of hubris, greed, self-delusion and legislative abandon -- only it's a system that tossed trillions of dollars into a waiting black hole, inevitably touching the lives of tens -if not hundreds- of millions of people. This is the *best* writing on this debacle I've encountered. I'd rate it right up there as commentary with David Cay Johnston's 'Perfectly Legal' and his 'Free Lunch'. But it's far more than simple commentary; Ms. Prins knows exactly what she's writing about. It's better than Taleb Nassim's 'The Black Swan' and outdistances James Galbraith's 'Predator State' and Thomas Frank's 'The Wrecking Crew' as a precise commentary on the enemy that has grown and prospered in our midst. Gillian Tett's 'Fools Gold' was a good explanation of the creation -and subsequent rise and abuse- of derivatives in the financial world, but lacks Ms. Prins' comprehensive view, from on high, of the high-octane transmogrification of the banking and financial industry over the past ten years from a service industry into a manufacturing industry designing, producing & marketing a new breed of "securities" built by rocket scientists that blew up after launch but nonetheless produced oodles of bonuses and fees for these firms and their CEOs.