This financial crisis reading list is full its scope. If you feel like you don’t understand much about the megabanks and the financial crisis, start with this short video.
Even if you choose just one book from this list or listen to one podcast, you’ll know more about what’s happening than many people do.
Financial Crisis Reading List
Podcasts
NPR: The Giant Pool of Money
NPR: Return to the Giant Pool of Money
NPR: Another Frightening Show about the Economy
EconTalk Interview with Simon Johnson
EconTalk Interview with Nassim Taleb
Documentaries
Inside Job documentary
Addendum to Inside Job (YouTube)
Money, Power, & Wall Street PBS Documentary (PBS online)
PBS Frontline documentary “The Warning” (PBS online)
Meltdown (YouTube)
High-frequency trading (CBS) (YouTube)
Quants: The Alchemists of Wall Street (YouTube)
Articles
“Very Risky Business - Derivatives” - Byron Dorgan
2002 letter to shareholders - Warren Buffett (“financial weapons of mass destruction”)
“The End of the Financial World as We Know It” - Michael Lewis & David Einhorn
“Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street” - Felix Salmon
Algorithms Take Control of Wall Street - Felix Salmon & Jon Stokes
“Why This Entrepreneur Is Having a Sleepless Night” - Paul Allen
Testimony of Eric Dinallo - On AIG & Glass-Steagall
Wiki - Derivatives
Wiki - Glass-Steagall Act of 1933
Wiki - Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999
Wiki - Commidity Futures Modernization Act of 2000
Books
Arranged roughly in order of mass appeal to nerd appeal. But who are we kidding? They all have nerd appeal.
The Big Short - Michael Lewis
I.O.U. - John Lanchester
Boomerang - Michael Lewis
Bailout - Neil Barofsky
Bull by the Horns - Sheila Bair
Crony Capitalism in America: 2008-2012 - Hunter Lewis
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense - Lawrence McDonald
Twilight of the Elites - Christopher Hayes
Infectious Greed - Frank Partnoy
Predator Nation - Charles Ferguson
Confidence Men - Ron Suskind
Too Big To Fail - Andrew Sorkin
Throw Them All Out - Peter Schweitzer
All the Devils are Here - Joe Nocera & Bethany McLean
Reckless Endangerment - Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rogner
Trillion-Dollar Meltdown - Charles Smith
The Ascent of Money - Niall Ferguson
13 Bankers - Simon Johnson & James Kwak
How the Trading Floor Really Works - Terri Duhon
Fault Lines - Raghuram Rajan
Fool’s Gold - Gillian Tett
Guns, Traders, and Money - Satyajit Das
Crisis Economics - Nouriel Roubini & Stephen Mihm
More Money Than God - Sebastian Mallaby
Senate Investigative Committee Report
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report
What suggestions would you add to this list? Please add them in the comments below!
Michael Hudson’s Bubble and Beyond, Yanis Varoufakis’ Global Minotaur and David McNally’s The Global Slump to the books list.
13 Bankers-Simon Johnson
Other People’s Money-Nomi Prins
Selling America Short (can’t remember the author)
A Very Bad Year (running diary of conversations with a Wall St. insider)
I recommend anything by Matt Taibbi, contributing editor of Rolling Stone Magazine. Some of his best articles are: Secrets & Lies of the Bailout, What Wall St. Learned from the Mafia & Bank of America, Too Crooked to Fail
Really informative & plainly written.
…..I forgot to add that I too recommend the podcast series NPR did, as well as the PBS documentaries & some of the Bill Moyers shows covering the financial industry also on PBS all available online.
EconTalk episodes with Cathy O’Neill, Neil Barofsky (book, Baoilout, on list) Anat Admatic on Bank Regulation (Banker’s New Clothes), Joshua Rauh on Public Pensions, Luigi Zingalis on Capitalism and Cronie Capitalism, Charles Calomiris on Capital Requirements, Weinberger on Too Big to Know