Senseless Panic (PDF)

The truth about the 2008 economic crisis from a Washington
insider

The 1980s opened with the prime interest rate at an astonishing
21.5 percent, leading to a severe recession with unemployment
reaching nearly 11 percent. Depression-like conditions befell the
country, the entire thrift industry was badly insolvent and the
major money center banks were loaded with third world debt. Some
3,000 bank and thrifts failed, including nine of Texas' ten
largest, and Continental Illinois, which, at the time, was the
seventh largest bank in the nation. These severe conditions were
not only handled without creating a panic, the economy actually
embarked on the longest peacetime expansion in history.

In Senseless Panic: How Washington Failed America,
William M. Isaac, Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC) during the banking and S&L crises of the
1980s, details what was different about 2008's meltdown that
allowed the failure of a comparative handful of institutions to
nearly shut down the world's financial system. The book also
tells the rousing story of Isaac's time at the FDIC.

* Details the mistakes that led to the panic of 2008 and
2009

* An updated paperback revision of the bestselling book on the
2008 economic crisis, including a fascinating new Epilogue

* Demystifies the conditions America faced in 2008

* Provides a road map for avoiding similar shutdowns and panics
in the future

* Includes a foreword by Federal Reserve Chairman Paul
Volcker

Senseless Panic is a provocative, quick-paced, and
thoughtful analysis of what went wrong with the nation's banking
system, a blunt indictment of United States policy, and a road map
for making sure it doesn't happen again.