A review by caroparr
All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis by Bethany McLean

4.0

I read this based on McLean's appearance on The Daily Show, and I'm glad I did. For someone (me) almost entirely ignorant about business and about Wall Street, this was a manageable introduction to concepts like credit default swaps and tranches. The authors are good storytellers, with each chapter introducing another character or episode in the snowballing crisis that is still affecting finance and politics. Now when I hear that Standard & Poor's has downgraded their rating of the US economy, I remember that they were giving triple A ratings to subprime mortgages up to just a few weeks before it all fell apart. And when I see Timothy Geitner on TV urging Congress to raise the debt ceiling, I know a lot more about his background on Wall Street than I did before. I upped my rating from three stars to four because I learned so much, always a plus. I only fear that I will now need to read a million business books, when I vowed that this was the year I would finally learn some chemistry...