The Devil's Derivatives

"The Devil's Derivatives" charts the untold story of modern financial innovation how investment banks invented new financial products, how investors across the world were wooed into buying them, how regulators were seduced by the political rewards of easy credit, and how speculators made a killing from the near-meltdown of the financial system. Author Nicholas Dunbar demystifies the revolution that briefly gave finance the same intellectual respectability as theoretical physics. He explains how bankers created a secret trillion-dollar machine that delivered cheap mortgages to the masses and riches beyond dreams to the financial innovators. Fundamental to this saga is how 'the people who hated to lose' were persuaded to accept risk by 'the people who loved to win.' Why did people come to trust and respect arcane financial tools? Who were the bankers competing to assemble the basic components into increasingly intricate machines? And how did this process achieve its own unstoppable momentum, ending in collapse, bailouts, and a public outcry against the stars of finance? Provocative and intriguing, "The Devil's Derivatives" sheds much-needed light on the forces that fueled the most brutal economic downturn since the Great Depression.

ISBN 1422177815   Pages 304 ISBN13 9781422177815 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 548 Publisher Harvard Business School Publishing   Published in Boston Imprint Harvard Business School Press   Height (mm) 238 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 165 Publication date 01 Jul 2011   Spine width (mm) 25 DEWEY 332.640973   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

..". well written and will grab the interest of financial professionals before the first time they have to turn a page." - Reuters "Even Warren Buffett could not have stated the case more simply." - "Absolute Return magazine" ..". a well-researched account of the forces and events that led to the implosion of the financial system three years ago." - "The Irish Times" "Nicholas Dunbar follows the first rule of good journalism: talk to everybody. He has interviewed not only the leading players in the derivatives industry, but has also followed many key actors whose stories have never appeared in print--until now. As this book makes clear, the dark side of financial innovation is just getting darker, and it is only a matter of time before we suffer another derivatives fiasco."--Frank Partnoy, George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance, University of San Diego School of Law "Nicholas Dunbar offers an insider's perspective into the complex and risky worl

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