"Do you find yourself wondering: How did we get here? How did the United States of America get into such a predicament whereby in one year, 2008, the financial system nearly vaporized, the stock market crashed, real estate tanked, and major corporations were being bailed out. . . .How did our great country, a bastion of capitalism, devolve into a Bailout Nation where the gains were privatized, but the losses were socialized?"

From the Foreword by Bill Fleckenstein

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January 15, 2010 at 9:00 am Bailout Nation Updated Reviews

Here are the most up-to-date collection of reviews for Bailout Nation:

USA Today: “Best books to make sense of financial crisis of 2009”
Miami Herald: “Best business books of 2009”
Stock Trader’s Almanac: “Investment Book of the Year”

“Succeeds in laying out all that transpired in easy-to-understand language. If you want to know how we got into this mess and what might still be coming, this is the book for you.”
-Wall Street Journal

“The author writes with the fury of an insider mortified by the behavior of his heretical peers . . . There is much to be said for the book’s irreverence. Mr. Ritholtz has written an important book about a complicated subject, and yet you could still read it at the beach. Here’s hoping that some policy makers in Washington take it with them on vacation this month.”
-New York Times

“Ritholtz makes a valuable new contribution to our understanding of how we arrived at this sorry juncture. He’s smart, sassy and often amusing. If you’re looking for an all-in-one place explanation of what went wrong and why, this is the book for you (or your confused neighbor).”
-Bloomberg

Bailout Nation’s straightforward, compelling account puts the crisis in context, explains why the US government responded so stupidly, offers solutions, and advises how to prevent a repeat. Ritholtz’s indictment of the financial and political establishment is devastatingly accurate.
-Asia Times

“Before the housing and credit bubbles popped, Barry Ritholtz, a lawyer turned blogger and money manager, was one of the voices crying in the wilderness. His caustic (and occasionally profane) blog, The Big Picture, dissected macroeconomic news and relentlessly cut through spin. His book takes a long view of the roots of the economic crisis, tracing the history of a series of ever more expensive taxpayer-funded bailouts of failed industries.”
-Newsweek

“Ritholtz’s book seeks to explain how the United States, once so proud, became “a nanny state for well-paid bankers. Ritholtz may be just the right person to explain the transition to both the disillusioned amateur and the finance junkie. He doesn’t pull his punches or bury the truth in layers of finance-speak, caveats, and disclaimers. Since he began blogging seven years ago, in-the-know readers of his popular blog, The Big Picture, have turned to Ritholtz for his prescient, refreshingly honest commentary on the economy. Anyone interested in understanding the roots of our current crisis should check out the book..”
-Freakonomics

“A comprehensive crisis scrapbook compiled by the money manager behind the popular financial blog the Big Picture in a quippy, no-nonsense voice…”
-New York Magazine

“These are some of the provocative and even dangerous questions that Barry Ritholtz takes on in Bailout Nation…Above all, Bailout Nation is about the socialization of risk and the privatization of profits.
-Forbes

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December 28, 2009 at 8:43 am Miami Herald: best business books of 2009

A look back at the best business books of 2009
Business Monday books columnist Richard Pachter offers his highly subjective list of favorites.
BY RICHARD PACHTER
HTTP://WWW.MIAMIHERALD.COM/BUSINESS/STORY/1399600.HTML

I didn’t — couldn’t — read every business book published during the past year, but I was still gob-smacked by the number of books that I did read in 2009, including a few just for fun. (Imagine that!) But among those that I read and reviewed in this space, these titles represent the ones that I thought were exceptional, have lasting value and were worth my time — and yours.
A few things that may have deserved inclusion didn’t make the cut for one reason or another, and some worthy titles that came out in 2009 won’t get reviewed until January. Them’s the breaks. You may have a few choices that aren’t here either. If you’d like to share, I’m always happy to get e-mail from readers. After all, you make this all possible.

Thanks for reading!

(Books listed in chronological order by review. Date of original review follows each title. Full reviews of all books on this list are online at www.richardpachter.com)

Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy. Barry Ritholtz. Wiley. 332 pages. 6/1/09

Economist and investment guru Barry Ritholtz’s blog, The Big Picture, is a mandatory daily stop for many. This honest, unvarnished look at the forces that screwed up the U.S. economy is a worthy candidate for a time capsule so that future financial operators can avoid the same traps that we fell into. Or at least howl when history repeats itself.

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