The Devil's Derivatives

Author Nicholas Dunbar demystifies the revolution that briefly gave finance the same intellectual respectability as theoretical physics. He explains how bankers created a secret trillion-dollar machine that delivered cheap mortgages to the masses and riches beyond dreams to the financial innovators.

Fundamental to this saga is how "the people who hated to lose" were persuaded to accept risk by "the people who loved to win." Why did people come to trust and respect arcane financial tools? Who were the bankers competing to assemble the basic components into increasingly intricate machines? How did this process achieve its own unstoppable momentum, ending in collapse, bailouts, and a public outcry against the stars of finance?

provocative and intriguing, The Devil's Derivatives sheds much-needed light on the forces that fueled the most brutal economic downturn since the Great Depression.