Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis | 
 enlarge | Authors: Paul Muolo, Mathew Padilla
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $15.51
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Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 4763
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0470292776
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.720973
EAN: 9780470292778
ASIN: 0470292776
Publication Date: July 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book delivered from the UK in 10-14 days.
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Product Description
In the summer of 2007, the subprime empire that Wall Street had built all came crashing down. On average, fifty lenders a month were going bust-and the people responsible for the crisis included not just unregulated loan brokers andcon artists, but also investment bankers and home loan institutions traditionally perceived as completely trustworthy. Chain of Blame chronicles this incredible disaster, with a specific focus on the players who participated in such a fundamentally flawed fiasco. Authors Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla, well-regarded journalists for National Mortgage News and the Orange County Register respectively, reveal the truth behind how this crisis occurred, what individuals and institutions-from lenders and brokers to some of the biggest investment banks in the world-were doing during this critical time, and who is ultimately responsible for what happened.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Reads like a work of fiction, but it's all true December 4, 2008
Norman Bour (The OC)
I've been in the real estate and financial planning field for almost 30 years and even though I like to think I'm an insider, much of the past lending mess was happening while I wasn't watching closely. Sure we saw the direction of where it was headed back in '05 and after, but what happened prior to that was eye opening. This book almost reads like a "whodunit" and the villains are many.
As a radio talk show host since 2002 we cautioned many of our listeners and clients of the pitfalls of these easy doc loans and warned against 100% financing, but greed and optimism are very compelling. And this book exposes many of the people behind the scenes who were guilty of the EXACT same mentality. How the "Big Boys" could say they didn't see what was going to happen is frightening and Matt & Paul pull all the skeletons out of the closet and expose them for what they are/ were.
Will we ever get out of this mess? Yes indeed. Will this Chain of Blame develop again? Probably.
You wanted to know November 27, 2008
Linda L. Torres
This book tells it like it is. It's clear, well ordered, and very readable. But it's a little scary to realize how greed can control a country like ours.
 An easy to read explanation of the Mortgage crisis; needs some editing though November 17, 2008
BK (SF, CA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book clearly spells out what went wrong to precipitate the mortgage crisis that catapulted the financial markets into a global meltdown. The book uses simple language to describe complex concepts, which is very helpful to the financial novice like myself. In this sense, this book is wonderful.
However, the book is way too long. Some whole paragraphs are repeated almost verbatim in different chapters. Each paragraph chronicles the life and times of another major mortgage company. While this concept is ok for telling stories about the individuals involved in the business, it makes for highly repetitive reading, as the mistakes made by one company are often made by others. The first 150 pages is a tough slog of similar people and similar stories, but the book picks up steam in the final 150.
Finally, while this book does a great job of explaining the mortgage industry and their role in the financial crisis, the authors make a cursory explanation of what truly happened on the Wall Street side of things. (This isn't too unexpected because the authors are mortgage experts.) For example, there is basically no mention of the subsequent credit crunch that was precipitated by the sub-prime mortgage disaster.
For a good explanation of what went wrong on the Wall Street side of things, I recommend 'The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash'. That book is not an easy read, because the author expects the reader to have a solid understanding in Wall Street lingo. But 'Chain of Blame' is a useful primer.
 Pleanty of blame to go around.. November 3, 2008
B. Melody (Yonkers,, NY United States)
This book was an easy read. I like the way the authors tried to keep it simple, which must've been a challenge. This whole crisis and why it happened, is not that simple to explain, so the average person, who's not in the world of high finance can understand. Muolo and Padilla did a good job breaking it down for us; exposing the culrpits involved and tried to give us an idea of what these guys were thinking. Obviously, they all swallowed that line from the movie Wall Street, "Greed is good", and paid a hefty price with other people's money.
So that's how it happened... October 24, 2008
Steve Economos (Orange County, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Until reading this book, it was difficult to see how bad home loans could bring down Wall Street. In an entertaining read, Muolo and Padilla tell the story.
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