The Lost Bank, Kirsten Grind
The Lost Bank, Kirsten Grind
List: $22.95 | Sale: $16.07
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The Lost Bank
The Story of Washington Mutualthe Biggest Bank Failure in American History

Author: Kirsten Grind

Narrator: Traber Burns

Unabridged: 14 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/13/2012


Synopsis

During the most dizzying days of the financial crisis, Washington Mutual, a bank with hundreds of billions of dollars in its coffers, suffered a crippling bank run. The story of its final, brutal collapse in the autumn of 2008, and its controversial sale to JPMorgan Chase, is an astonishing account of how one bank lost itself to greed and mismanagement and how the entire financial industryand even the entire countrylost its way as well. Kirsten GrindsThe Lost Bankis a magisterial and gripping account of these events, tracing the cultural shifts, the cockamamie financial engineering, and the hubris and avarice that made this incredible story possible. The men and women who become the central players in this tragedythe regulators and the bankers, the home buyers and the lenders, the number crunchers and the shareholdersare heroes and villains, perpetrators and victims, often switching roles with one another as the drama unfolds. Written as compellingly as the finest fiction,The Lost Bankmakes it clear that the collapse of Washington Mutual was not just the largest bank failure in American history. It is a story of talismanic qualities, reflecting the incredible rise and the precipitous collapse of not only an institution but of trust, fortunes, and the marketplaces for risk across the world.

About Kirsten Grind

Kirsten Grind is an enterprise reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she has worked since 2012. She has received more than a dozen national awards for her work, including a Pulitzer Prize finalist citation and a Loeb Award. Her first book, The Lost Bank, was named the best investigative book of 2012 by the Investigative Reporters & Editors association, and is coauthor of Happy at Any Cost. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Benjamin on August 12, 2015

Mrs. Grind was originally on the right track with her research back in the ealy days of the WAMU saga but somewhere along the way, she forgot to include all the 'juicy' bits of the story, i.e. corporate espionage and corrupt collusion between Jamie Dimon and Sheila Bair leading up to the takedown of......more

Goodreads review by Alberto on April 08, 2023

Cliff Notes version: WaMu failed because CEO Kerry Killinger had a midlife crisis. Change my mind. I have read a lot of books about the wholesale / investment bank side of the 2008 crisis, focusing on Mortgage Backed Securities. However, this is my first book about the retail bank side of it. It prov......more

Goodreads review by Deb on April 24, 2017

Tragic tale, particularly when you knew the players. Great insight to what was going on behind the scenes in Washington, but so sad see all the components that led to the dominos falling and the downfall of a great company...........more

Goodreads review by Suresh on June 04, 2018

Washington Mutual was the biggest bank failure in the U.S. With 3,600 branches and 43,000 employees spread across the nation, US$ 128 billions in deposits and assets of US$ 310 billions, there just was no reason why the bank should not have been bailed out and allowed to fail. It appears that the U.......more