The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It: What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time--and How to Survive It [Paperback]

Dave Kansas (Author)

Book Description

Series: Wall Street Journal | Publication Date: January 27, 2009

The definitive guide for Main Street readers who want to make sense of what′s happening on Wall Street, and better understand how we got here and what we need to know to in days to come. Written by seasoned financial writer Dave Kansas, this official Wall Street Journal guide will be filled with practical information, revealing what the crisis means for reader′s financial lives, and what steps they should be taking now to inform and protect themselves.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A very useful beginning for those who are perplexed and anxious about the financial crisis—pretty much everybody.” (Library Journal )

About the Author

The editor of The Wall Street Journal's Money & Investing section and editor in chief of TheStreet.com, Dave Kansas is the chief markets commentator and a personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He is also the author of The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It, The Wall Street Journal's Complete Money & Investing Guidebook, and TheStreet.com Guide to Investing in the Internet Era. He lives in New York City.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness (January 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061788406
• ISBN-13: 978-0061788406
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #657,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A concise and unbiased look at what happened to our economy, February 1, 2009

By 

Robert Frost (TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It: What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time--and How to Survive It (Paperback)

This is the first book I have read on my new Kindle. The author, Dave Kansas, is a former editor of the Wall Street Journal. The book is a concise and unbiased examination of what exactly has happened to the economy as well as a brief discussion on what an individual should currently do to protect their investments.

The book starts by giving a brief history of risk - specifically examining how changes in investment strategies created new risk markets and thus new avenues for profit, leading to the bundling and selling of high risk mortgages that largely kicked off the economic decline. From there proceeds a discussion of derivatives, private-equity, and leverage.

Chapter three deals with the 'canaries in the coal mine' that should have been taken note of before the collapse of Bear Stearns. Chapter four deals with the cascading impacts such as the takeover of Fannie and Freddie and the death of Lehman Brothers.

Chapter five is about where we go from here. Chapter six shifts to the individual and which types of investments are protected. Chapter seven is about debt and Chapter eight provides advice for the individual, based on their age.

Scattered throughout the book are mini-biographies of the names and faces involved, such as Timothy Geithner, Warren Buffett, and Alan Greenspan. At the end of each chapter is a summary in the form of an FAQ.

I found the book very interesting and well written. What to many would sound like a rather dry subject is given in a fast paced narrative.

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn from this Crisis and make it Your Opportunity, February 10, 2009

By 

Gary O. Clement - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It: What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time--and How to Survive It (Paperback)

I stopped cold when I saw "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It" on a bookstand in the Pittsburgh Airport in January 2009. Browsing through it, not only could I scarcely believe how quickly it was written and brought to market, I could barely believe how clearly it outlined our current economic environment.

Another thing became clear - that Dave Kansas, from his perch as a journalist with The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet.com, and FiLife is one of the few writers who could have written this book.

Kansas captures the historical background to the cataclysmic month of October 2008 using the recent examples of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Russian crisis of 1998, the U.S. internet and technology bubble of 2000-2001. More pointedly, he delves into the implosion of hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM), the shortsighted policies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the creation of, and dependence on, credit-default swaps (CDSs), collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), and collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs).

Kansas's conclusion: October 2008 was predictable. In fact, many of the firms swirling at the epicenter of the current crisis knew they had serious trouble brewing, but couldn't, or wouldn't, take action to avert their fate.

In early 2009, nothing can hide how much our world and our financial markets have changed. Venerable financial firms have either ceased to exist or been swallowed up by stronger, more prudent, players. We are all left to deal with the aftermath.

We've got to deal with the aftermath as we deal with our individual and collective behavior. I say that because most of us have scant knowledge of the role that complex financial products played in this mess and, to a large degree, that's okay. What's not okay is our intimate, yet often unrecognized or unacknowledged, knowledge of our human frailties. Human frailties that Kansas intimates underlie the real problem.

As human beings, we do chase returns. We do act on our greed and overconfidence. We are often guilty of employing hope rather than sound strategy. And, if human beings approach the financial market in this way, what does that portend for a financial system run by human beings?

I learned a great deal from "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It." I found it as important as a chronicle of the human frailties that led to our current crisis as it is an explanation of the nuts and bolts of how it happened. It cut through the hype and explained very complex terms in a straight forward and easily understood manner. But, it went even further by aiming to arm me with usable information.

The bottom line is it's a true feat to produce a book this good so quickly. My only question is: Will we, individually and collectively, learn from it just as quickly?

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Written too soon?, June 10, 2009

By 

William Whipple III (Middletown, Delaware) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It: What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time--and How to Survive It (Paperback)

This book by Dave Kansas (formerly an editor at the Wall Street Journal, among other things) covers the financial turmoil and recession that erupted in September 2008 and continued into the next Administration.

Kansas does a good job of explaining why a speculative bubble developed. The basic ingredients were easy money, a widespread conviction that housing prices could only go up, and a willingness of banks, investors, and home buyers alike to borrow beyond their means in hopes of windfall gains. He declines to assign the blame to any particular group, e.g., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, concluding that although these quasi-governmental entities "played their part, so did the Wall Street banks that concocted investment instruments that would turn toxic."

The sequence of events in 2008 is well covered, with background information on some of the key players and layman's language explanations of the complex financial instruments that were involved, e.g., credit default swaps. Nothing really new, but this is a concise and useful summary.

Of course, the story continued beyond the cutoff point chosen for this book (apparently January 2009), and readers may be put off that major developments - such as the $787 billion stimulus bill and the prepackaged bankruptcy filings of Chrysler and General Motors - are not mentioned. Such is the inevitable consequence of getting out a book about "the greatest financial crisis of our time" (per back cover copy) so quickly.

The author's predictions for the future shape of Wall Street are rather sketchy, e.g., he foresees "a handful of behemoths and a number of minnows [specializing] in key areas such as advising on mergers or helping companies go public," with the "firms in between" struggling to survive. And there will be new government regulations aimed at preventing such a crisis from happening again, hopefully remaking the system rather than simply adding "more regulations and regulators." (As of this writing, the add-on approach seems to be winning out.)

Rather better done, I thought, was the advice provided for individuals. Give up the notion that real estate is a great investment; buy a house to live in if you can afford a 20% down payment and otherwise rent. Get rid of that high-priced credit card debt, it is perilous to your financial health, and get in the habit of "paying yourself first" (saving). Do not give up on stock investments, which will pay off better than anything else in the long run, but diversify your holdings and avoid securities that have been bid up beyond reason. Make your own investment decisions, but pay a reputable financial adviser to provide a check on your reasoning. Consider a reverse mortgage if it fits your circumstances, but be aware of the pitfalls (high cost, possibility that declining real estate values will leave a debt for your estate).

What about the possibility that the current recession will not end within the next year or so, but become a long, drawn-out affair? The author advises readers not to "expect long soup lines and tattered men selling apples from a bucket. The references to the Great Depression are hyperbolic and the product more of reduced memories than of reality." I could argue otherwise, but let's hope he is right.