Financial Wisdom Begins With This

Confucius gets credit for a saying that has been on men’s lips since the first lie was told: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”

Fraud, malfeasance, systemic risk, and even fundamentalist Islamic terrorism have been all but scrubbed from Washington’s lexicon, courtesy of the Ministry of Truth.

Today’s Wall Street Journal published a short op-ed by Robert Rubin. His commentary is fine as far as it goes, but in what seems to be a bid for a post in the next Democratic administration, he omits his role in the financial crisis. In Decisions, I jog your memory.

Book blurb: In New York, the Federal Reserve Bank hides damaging information about too-big-too-fail banks from the public eye. A prominent bank CEO seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

In Washington D.C., a former Wall Street regulator checks into a hotel using the name of a hedge fund manager for an illicit meeting with a prostitute. In a D.C. suburb, the CFO of a beleaguered mortgage giant chooses a drastic personal end to “relentless pressure”.

In a picturesque suburb of Zug, Switzerland, the CFO of a major insurance company decides to end his life. In London, a financier kills himself in a way he once said he never would.

Janet Tavakoli shines a bright light on the money-driven culture of Wall Street and Washington, and the life and death consequences of our decisions that put profit above all.

Release date: April 4, 2015. Approximately 14,000 words of text (not including front and back matter and references)