I cannot live without books.
-Thomas Jefferson
All of Roger's book selections have been carefully selected with the intention of learning more in the many areas that can enrich his clients' lives.
House of Cards:
A Tale of Hubris & Wretched Excess on
Wall Street
By William D. Cohan
Roger's Notes
For anyone who is fascinated by finance or wonders how did the events that culminated in the Fall of 2008 occur, this is an entertaining and easy to read overview of one element of the crisis. The beginning of the book focuses on the last dying days of Bear Stearns before its forced acquisition by JP Morgan Chase.
The author then backs the narrative to the beginning of the firm in 1923 and walks through the firm’s business history focusing on the personalities who led the firm – Cy Lewis, Ace Greenberg, and Jimmy Cayne. In doing so, he describes how the strengths and weaknesses of the various personalities involved led to the ultimate downfall of the firm.
Like one of my favorite business books (When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management), this book does an entertaining job of showing that businesses are not just businesses. They are collections of personalities and people who make the entity work or sometimes not work.
At another level, House of Cards provides a view on what was going on in Wall Street and within the minds of the regulators during the Bear Stearns turmoil. In
hindsight, even the most informed participants did not know what the longer term implications would be of the actions taken by the employees and managers of Bear Stearns. Hopefully, discussions like this will help everyone be better able to see the signs of trouble brewing in the future.
Note: Just last week a new book was published about the Bear Stearns saga. The new one is entitled Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours of Bear Stearns, the Toughest Firm on Wall Street. I hope to have a review of this book in the near future.
Roger's
Current Selection
Roger G. Ward, CPA/PFS, CFP®
Managing Principal
