The best books on the financial crisis?

[Emillereid]

I want to buy a book as a gift for a savvy young person that really explains the financial crisis. Any suggestions?

[marmar]

1. This is a good one by Robert Scheer:

The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street

[canoeist52]

2. Matt Taibbi's "Griftopia"

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780385529952.html

"The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class—made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms and political maneuvers. The crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they’ve hijacked America’s political and economic life."

[baldguy]

3. Das Kapital

[AlinPA]

4. The Big Short Michael Lewis.

[WCGreen]

5. The Secrets of the Temple by William Greider

Over 20 years old and still relevant...

[PassingFair]

6. The Shock Doctrine.

I read it about 2 years ago, and
I'm still depressed.

[PoliticAverse]

7. "The Great American Stickup"

by Robert Scheer.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Stickup-Republicans-Democrats/dp/1568584342
http://www.truthdig.com/robert_scheer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnd3Oa0RFhc

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. John Quiggin's 'Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us '...

....lays out the bankrupt economic theories that got us here.

Happy is he who understands the causes of things. Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. Vergil. Georgics

[stray cat]

9. All the devils are here

[phasma ex machina]

10. "When Money Dies" nt

[mdavies013]

11. Matt Taibbi's Griftopia by far...and I've read most.

[Emillereid]

12. Thanks for the ideas everybody. Happiness to all!

[touche]

13. "Too Big to Fail" - By Sorkin

A very refreshing personal take, moment-by-moment.

[SheilaT]

14. The Wrecking Crew

by Thomas Frank. Even though it came out in 2008, it describes in careful detail just how conseervatives are happily defunding the Left, riding roughshod over the economy, and generally destroying our economy. It's not exactly all about the current financial situation, but tells a lot about what's led to it.

[ChillbertKChesterton]

16. Frank is an interesting author with compelling arguments

His thesis in Wrecking Crew is pretty solid

[Yupster]

15. Best one I've found is

"The weekend that changed Wall Street"

by Maria Bartiromo.

She's a CNBC Financial Reporter and she was on the story talking to all the participants real time and then after the crash. Very clear reporting.

[ChillbertKChesterton]

17. First as Tragedy, Then as Farce - Slavoj Zizek

Zizek argues that 9/11 and the 2008 financial collapse marked the one-two punch of history that signaled the failures of democratic liberal capitalism as the "final" arrangement of global economy.

He looks at Francis Fukuyama's claim that we have reached the "End of History", and compellingly argues that 2001 and 2008 marked the "end of the end of history", first in the political sphere, then in the economic sphere.

[QC]

18. Another vote for Griftopia.

Taibbi has been getting the underbus treatment in GD, since he ventured a criticism of someone who must never be criticized, but he is an excellent writer on this topic.

[SheilaT]

19. "This Time It's Different"

by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff.