Complicit: How Greed and Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable Book Review

The following book review was written by Kelly W. Peavey – an avid reader with a less than six-figure income and minimal personal investments outside his 401k.

If you want to know how the credit crisis began, and what lessons might be learned from it, Complicit: How Greed and Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable (Bloomberg), written by Mark Gilbert, might be what you’re looking for. If you read it carefully, and thoughtfully, it might provoke more questions than you care to know the answers to. The principles described and the mentality of the people involved may allow you to make broader financial connections outside the immediate scope of this book.

The book retails for $24.95 in the U.S. Starting at the Introduction through the last printed page: “About Bloomberg;” it comes in at 160 pages. The author, is the bureau chief for Bloomberg News in London and a regular columnist on global financial issues.

What do you know about money? I mean, really. Where does it come from? The Treasury Department? Does it have any intrinsic worth? Why do we value it? It’s just fancy paper and ink, after all. Is that dollar bill in your pocket worth as much as it was 10 years ago? Yesterday? Do we create wealth simply by printing more?

It might surprise you to learn that what makes this whole system work, is faith. Yes, we all believe that money has value, and our agreement with each other is what assigns that value. This is the root of the story in this book about the credit bubble and the subsequent crisis when it popped. The first question in the introduction is, “Where did the money come from?” The second paragraph begins to answer that question by stating there wasn’t that much to begin with, but for awhile, we all believed it did.

As for this book’s main objective, explaining the credit crisis as a result of greed and collusion, it does so in eleven chapters – stepping you through an examination of how the credit crisis evolved and its causes. The writing style and inclusion of the definitions, as well as specific descriptions of the monetary instruments involved, make this book accessible to the layperson. The graphs included at various points in the book help paint the broad picture, giving you a better sense of the data involved. The quotes at the beginning of the chapters added some interesting flavor to the text. My only disappointment was with the end, and it was only a minor one. I would have liked to see a little more development in the Policy Prescriptions area.

Mr. Gilbert does not mince words, and puts names to the players involved.  He provides specific dates and dollar figures as sign posts along the way.  The specifics used in the book indicate thorough research and attention to detail.  A very worthwhile read, and a call to action.

——–