Confidence Game: How Hedge Fund Manager Bill Ackman Called Wall Street's Bluff
An expose on the delusion, greed, and arrogance that led to America's credit crisis.<br /><br />The collapse of America's credit markets in 2008 is quite possibly the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history. Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street's Bluff is the story of Bill Ackman's six-year campaign to warn that the $2.5 trillion bond insurance business was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Branded a fraud by the "Wall Street Journal" and "New York Times," and investigated by Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ackman later made his investors more than $1 billion when bond insurers kicked off the collapse of the credit markets.<br /><br />* Unravels the story of the credit crisis through an engaging and human drama<br />* Draws on unprecedented access to one of Wall Street's best-known investors<br />* Shows how excessive leverage, dangerous financial models, and a blind reliance on triple-A credit ratings sent Wall Street careening toward disaster<br /><br />Confidence Game is a real world "Emperor's New Clothes," a tale of widespread delusion, and one dissenting voice in the era leading up to the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.
