Product Description

Bear, Stearns & Co., a storied Wall Street firm with a maverick reputation, had endured many crises in its 85-year history. Nothing, however, could have prepared the firm for the sudden death spiral that would lead to its takeover for a pittance. In a dramatic showdown with JP Morgan and the Fed, this is the tragic story of how fortunes were made and lost. Bill Bramber, a senior executive at Bear Stearns, had a bird's eye view of just what happened inside Bear's offices and on the trading floor that led to the most sensational financial crisis of our times.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #219968 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-15
• Released on: 2008-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 350 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781883283636
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Publisher
"You just can't make this shit up...there has never been a more appropriate description for a situation like the one I lived through beginning on Monday, March 10, 2008. So appropriate did I find the phrase, in fact, that it was the last thing I said to a co-worker, a friend who, because of the time he'd spent on a Navy attack sub, had acquired the nickname of Captain Nemo on the trading floor. And so perfect a summation of our situation was it that the phrase became something of a battle cry for the two of us as the days went by, a sort of inside joke that made the pain of our demise more bearable. And it started on Monday, March 10, 2008, the day that, in my mind, came to be known as the beginning of the end."

About the Author
Bill Bamber, a senior executive at Bear Stearns, had a bird's eye view of just what happened inside Bear's offices and on the trading floor that led to the most sensational financial crisis of our times.

Customer Reviews

Wait for a good book on Bear collapse - this is not it!
My previous one-star review of this book was removed by Amazon, along with another one written by a different reviewer. So keep in mind that AMZN actively removes some reviews.

I am a former (long time ago) Bear employee. While I will give credit (and one star) for the author's good explanations of Wall Street and some of the more exotic products, if you are looking for insight into the causes of the Bear collapse, you won't find them here. Other reviewers have stated correctly that you would be better off reviewing newspaper coverage of the events to learn what happened.

Insightful, but not of Bear Stearns
What I found interesting about this book is the complete lack of responsibility or culpability of a typical Wall Street trader in the financial collapse. Bill Bamber claims his firm was a "martyr for the sins of Wall Street" (chapter 10). That Bear Stearns was anything but a house of cards that employees were profiting handsomely off of while placing investor money at great risk is never made a case for. As the information has no depth other than any one else reading a newspaper would have, this book more supports that conclusion than refutes it.
I'd add that investors of Bear Stearns were also very poorly served by the firms employees, a group Bamber has very little sympathy for. Were the firm's employees really the unwitting dupes portrayed or the wizards of Wall Street they would like to think of themselves as?
This book is also poorly edited and redundent, I slogged through it only to justify my review.

Deeply Disappointed
My heart goes out to everyone at Bear, and the author here was first to get a book on this topic off the press. Unfortunately, it was written from the perspective of an "unconnected observer" of the events, and therefore lacks any credibility regarding "providing an insiders account". I got more info from reading the Financial Times than this book. It also shows the speed to rush this to the press because the number of typos in the book actually compelled me to return it to Amazon for a refund, aside from the fact that 80% of the way through the book, I still haven't read a single thing worth my dime. Why did I give 2 starts instead of 1? Because this author got the book out first. That deserves some recognition.