Book cover of A Colossal Failure of Common Sense

Book description

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now: What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight


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Why read it?

1 author picked A Colossal Failure of Common Sense as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is the inside story of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. What I particularly value about this book is the insights it offers into how easily investment banks and the traders and managers who inhabit them can become trapped in self-deception and the motivated ignorance of uncomfortable knowledge.

It provides a window into events at the heart of the 2007/8 financial crisis. Above all, it illustrates how smart people can come to make really stupid decisions. Of course, the author makes much of his own prescience. However, this does not detract from the lessons we can all learn about the


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