Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy

Written by Bill Fleckenstein, Barry Ritholtz and Aaron Task

Narrated by Bill Quinn

Bailout Nation, Revised and Updated is a scathing expose on the politicians, financial leaders, and regulators responsible for the financial crisis of 2008. Written by Barry Ritholtz, one of todays most popular economic bloggers and media commentators, the book shows how ideology has been turned on its head and how the U.S. has abandoned its capitalistic roots and morphed into Bailout Nation. Ritholtzs rogues gallery of perpetrators and enables includes Alan Greenspan, former Senator Phil Gramm, Presidents Bush and Clinton, Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, the biggest Wall Street firms, the ratings agencies, and Washington regulators. Together these individuals and institutions created a system that allowed banks and financial institutions to operate with little or no effective oversight, reaping the rewards of their success and insuring their failures would be underwritten by taxpayers. Scathing, tough-minded and marked by a tone of outrage, Bailout Nation perfectly matches the public mood and stands alone as a searing indictment of the financial and political establishment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascent Audio
• Release date: Jul 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781663704658

Reviews for Bailout Nation

[davidgoldsteen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bailout Nation finds Barry Ritholtz performing a delicate balancing act, not one attempted by many commentators of the current crisis -- perhaps excluding Paul Krugman. Ritholtz is both incisive analyst and an angry, angry man. He's doesn't mind naming his villains by name, has no problem referring to members of entire professions as 'weasels,' and even provides a ranking of relative blameworthiness. Alan Greenspan gets the brunt of his criticism, with Phil Gramm and other 'free market ideologues' in a close second place.

The book is well structured and nicely written. In its indignation, it reads a little like something a right-wing talk show host would write, if he had the brains to do so. But Ritholtz isn't pushing a party line, just common sense.

Readers may find the book off putting and too much of a screed if they're expecting a measured, scholarly work -- though the cover art really should warn you. If the book has a major fault, it's that Ritholtz doesn't spend much effort explaining how to get out of the mess. He can tell us how we got there, not where to go.