Andrew Ross Sorkin

Too Big to Fail

1. IDEA 1

   The crisis unfolded behind closed doors

   Sorkin, a financial journalist, describes the 2008 financial crisis from inside the meetings where bankers and officials tried to stop it. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, he shows how decisions made in days shaped the world economy.

2. IDEA 2

   Bear Stearns was the first warning

   Sorkin describes the rescue of Bear Stearns in early 2008, when the government helped arrange its sale. It was a sign of deeper problems. In Sorkin's account, the rescue showed regulators that a failing firm could shake the whole market, and that more trouble might follow.

3. IDEA 3

   Officials faced impossible choices

   Sorkin describes Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner. They struggled to decide which firms to save. In Sorkin's account, each had to make fast, high-stakes choices with little time and with incomplete information about what would happen next.

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