Synopses & Reviews
In just over three years, real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of investorsand#8217; dollars on a single deal. The New York Times reporter who first broke the story of the sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village takes readers inside the most spectacular failure in real estate history, using this single deal as a lens to see how and why the real estate crisis happened.
How did the smartest people in real estate lose billions in one single deal? How did the Church of England, the California public employeesand#8217; pension fund, and the Singapore government lose more than one billion dollars combined investing in a middle-class housing complex in New York City? How did MetLife make three billion dollars on the deal without any repercussions from a historically racist policy of housing segregation? And how did nine residents of a sleepy enclave in New York City win one of the most unlikely lawsuits in the history of real estate law?
Not only does Other Peopleand#8217;s Money answer those questions, it also explains the current recession in stark, clear detail while providing riveting first-person accounts of the titanic failure of the real estate industry to see that a recession was coming. Itand#8217;s the definitive book on real estate during the bubble yearsand#151;and what happened when that enormous bubble exploded.
and#160;
Review
"...comprehensive and chilling..."
-TIME
"...his action scenes are intimate and engaging..."
-The New Yorker
"Sorkin's prodigious reporting and lively writing put the reader in the room for some of the biggest-dollar conference calls in history. It's an entertaining book, brisk book...Sorkin skillfully captures the raucous enthusiasm and riotous greed that fueled this rational irrationality."
-The New York Times Book Review
"...brings the drama alive with unusual inside access and compelling detail...A deeply researched account of the financial meltdown."
-BusinessWeek
"...meticulously researched...told brilliantly. Other blow-by-blow accounts are in the works. It is hard to imagine them being this riveting."
-The Economist
"Sorkin's densely detailed and astonishing narrative of the epic financial crisis of 2008 is an extraordinary achievement that will be hard to surpass as the definitive account...as a dramatic close-up, his book is hard to beat."
-Financial Times
"Sorkin's book, like its author, is a phenom...an absolute tour de force."
-The American Prospect
"Andrew Ross Sorkin pens what may be the definitive history of the banking crisis."
-The Atlantic Monthly
"Andrew Ross Sorkin has written a fascinating, scene-by-scene saga of the eyeless trying to march the clueless through Great Depression II."
-Tom Wolfe
"...Sorkin has succeeded in writing the book of the crisis, with amazing levels of detail and access."
-Reuters
"Sorkin can write. His storytelling makes "Liar's Poker" look like a children's book."
-SNL Financial
Review
"It's been said that journalism is the first draft of history, but with his upcoming bookand#160;
Other People's Money,and#160;
New York Timesand#160;reporter Charles Bagli writes the most authoritative account yet of the failed Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village deal and the housing crises that rocked the world." -
New York Observer and#160;
and#8220;The reader interested in New York real estate history, its moneyed elites, or even the self-contradictory aspects of social investment should find ample material for reflection and enjoyment in Bagliand#8217;s account.and#8221;
and#8212; Publishers Weekly
and#8220;Bagli's sourcing is impressive, and readers will welcome his ability to make arcane investment dealings comprehensible.and#8221; and#8212;Kirkus
and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money delivers one of the great untold stories of the financial crisisand#8212;how greed, arrogance, and the distorted incentives of the commercial real estate market helped drive our nationand#8217;s economy off a cliff. Told through meticulous reporting of what was arguably the worst real estate deal of all time, in this vitally important book Bagli demonstrates how the well-heeled and well-connected walked away relatively unscathed from the wreckage that they created, leaving a devastated middle class holding the bag yet again.and#8221;
and#8212;Neil Barofsky, New York Times bestselling author of Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street
and#8220;Charles Bagli does for the politics and economics of urban real estate finance what Jane Jacobs did for urban street life. Bagliand#8217;s new book, Other Peopleand#8217;s Money, uses the sale of a major housing complex on Manhattanand#8217;s Lower East Side, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, to demonstrate how contemporary real estate speculators deploy international finance and local politics to change the housing options of more ordinary city dwellers. Bagli, a talented journalist, makes the street-level impacts of abstract global finance easily understood.and#8221;
and#8212;Elliott Sclar, professor of urban planning, Columbia University
and#160;and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money is a terrific book. With remarkable textual clarity and a fine-tuned dramatic sensibility, Charles Bagli has recreated the extraordinarily high stakes poker game that was the largest real estate deal in U.S. history. His characters include the biggest real estate players on the planet as well as middle-class residents desperately holding on by their fingertips to the only housing they can afford. A truly epic tale, one that systematically demonstrates the logic (and illogic) of the real estate bubble that set the stage for worldwide recession and that reveals the wild, unforgiving nature of twenty-first-century capitalism. Itand#8217;s a powerful story and a great read.and#8221;
and#8212;Rick Fantasia, coauthor of Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement and professor of sociology at Smith College
and#160;
Review
"It's been said that journalism is the first draft of history, but with his upcoming bookand#160;
Other People's Money,and#160;
New York Timesand#160;reporter Charles Bagli writes the most authoritative account yet of the failed Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village deal and the housing crises that rocked the world." -
New York Observer and#160;
and#8220;The reader interested in New York real estate history, its moneyed elites, or even the self-contradictory aspects of social investment should find ample material for reflection and enjoyment in Bagliand#8217;s account.and#8221;
and#8212; Publishers Weekly
and#8220;Bagli's sourcing is impressive, and readers will welcome his ability to make arcane investment dealings comprehensible.and#8221; and#8212;Kirkus
and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money delivers one of the great untold stories of the financial crisisand#8212;how greed, arrogance, and the distorted incentives of the commercial real estate market helped drive our nationand#8217;s economy off a cliff. Told through meticulous reporting of what was arguably the worst real estate deal of all time, in this vitally important book Bagli demonstrates how the well-heeled and well-connected walked away relatively unscathed from the wreckage that they created, leaving a devastated middle class holding the bag yet again.and#8221;
and#8212;Neil Barofsky, New York Times bestselling author of Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street
and#8220;Charles Bagli does for the politics and economics of urban real estate finance what Jane Jacobs did for urban street life. Bagliand#8217;s new book, Other Peopleand#8217;s Money, uses the sale of a major housing complex on Manhattanand#8217;s Lower East Side, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, to demonstrate how contemporary real estate speculators deploy international finance and local politics to change the housing options of more ordinary city dwellers. Bagli, a talented journalist, makes the street-level impacts of abstract global finance easily understood.and#8221;
and#8212;Elliott Sclar, professor of urban planning, Columbia University
and#160;and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money is a terrific book. With remarkable textual clarity and a fine-tuned dramatic sensibility, Charles Bagli has recreated the extraordinarily high stakes poker game that was the largest real estate deal in U.S. history. His characters include the biggest real estate players on the planet as well as middle-class residents desperately holding on by their fingertips to the only housing they can afford. A truly epic tale, one that systematically demonstrates the logic (and illogic) of the real estate bubble that set the stage for worldwide recession and that reveals the wild, unforgiving nature of twenty-first-century capitalism. Itand#8217;s a powerful story and a great read.and#8221;
and#8212;Rick Fantasia, coauthor of Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement and professor of sociology at Smith College
and#160;
Review
Praise forand#160;
Other People's Money:
and#8220;The reader interested in New York real estate history, its moneyed elites, or even the self-contradictory aspects of social investment should find ample material for reflection and enjoyment in Bagliand#8217;s account.and#8221;
and#8212; Publishers Weekly
and#8220;Bagli's sourcing is impressive, and readers will welcome his ability to make arcane investment dealings comprehensible.and#8221; and#8212;Kirkus
and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money delivers one of the great untold stories of the financial crisisand#8212;how greed, arrogance, and the distorted incentives of the commercial real estate market helped drive our nationand#8217;s economy off a cliff. Told through meticulous reporting of what was arguably the worst real estate deal of all time, in this vitally important book Bagli demonstrates how the well-heeled and well-connected walked away relatively unscathed from the wreckage that they created, leaving a devastated middle class holding the bag yet again.and#8221;
and#8212;Neil Barofsky, New York Times bestselling author of Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street
and#8220;Charles Bagli does for the politics and economics of urban real estate finance what Jane Jacobs did for urban street life. Bagliand#8217;s new book, Other Peopleand#8217;s Money, uses the sale of a major housing complex on Manhattanand#8217;s Lower East Side, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, to demonstrate how contemporary real estate speculators deploy international finance and local politics to change the housing options of more ordinary city dwellers. Bagli, a talented journalist, makes the street-level impacts of abstract global finance easily understood.and#8221;
and#8212;Elliott Sclar, professor of urban planning, Columbia University
and#160;and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money is a terrific book. With remarkable textual clarity and a fine-tuned dramatic sensibility, Charles Bagli has recreated the extraordinarily high stakes poker game that was the largest real estate deal in U.S. history. His characters include the biggest real estate players on the planet as well as middle-class residents desperately holding on by their fingertips to the only housing they can afford. A truly epic tale, one that systematically demonstrates the logic (and illogic) of the real estate bubble that set the stage for worldwide recession and that reveals the wild, unforgiving nature of twenty-first-century capitalism. Itand#8217;s a powerful story and a great read.and#8221;
and#8212;Rick Fantasia, coauthor of Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement and professor of sociology at Smith College
and#160;
Synopsis
Andrew Ross Sorkin's website
Andrew Ross Sorkin's interview on Charlie Rose Watch a Video
Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego and greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world’s economy.
“We’ve got to get some foam down on the runway!” a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the then-president of the Federal Reserve of New York, would tell Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, about the catastrophic crash the world’s financial system would experience.
Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail re-creates all the drama and turmoil, revealing neverdisclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle. This true story is not just a look at banks that were “too big to fail,” it is a real-life thriller with a cast of bold-faced names who themselves thought they were too big to fail.
Synopsis
A veteran New York Times reporter dissects the most spectacular failure in real estate history
Real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of dollars when their much-vaunted purchase of Stuyvesant TownPeter Cooper Village in New York City failed to deliver the expected profits. But how did Tishman Speyer walk away from the deal unscathed, while others took the financial hitand MetLife scored a $3 billion profit?
Illuminating the world of big real estate the way Too Big to Fail did for banks, Other Peoples Money is a riveting account of politics, high finance, and the hubris that ultimately led to the nationwide real estate meltdown.
About the Author
Andrew Ross Sorkin is the award-winning chief mergers and acquisitions reporter for The New York Times, a columnist, and assistant editor of business and finance news. He is also the editor and founder of DealBook, an online daily financial report. He has won a Gerald Loeb Award, the highest honor in business journalism, and a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award. In 2007, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader.