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Confidence Men
Book

Confidence Men

Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President

Ron Suskind
Harper, 2011

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

If ever a moment was ripe for change, it was in the fall of 2008. A young president-elect had tapped into the anxieties and fears of a nation suffering through its worst economic crisis in decades. Barack Obama offered Americans hope in a better future but then hit the power-sucking nexus of Wall Street and Washington. Journalist Ron Suskind offers an insider’s look at the machinations, power plays and personalities within the first year of the Obama White House and examines Obama as president against a backdrop of global drama and uncertainty. Suskind’s more than 200 interviews with top participants in both finance and government – including the president – provide a telling story of how campaign promises can slam up against the intransigent realities of governing. While remaining, as always, totally neutral in terms of political points of view, getAbstract recommends Suskind’s book for its particularly lucid exposition of the unfolding financial crisis and how all-too-human politicians and bankers, who – despite the cautionary admonition of former presidential chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel – “let a crisis go to waste.”

Take-Aways

  • Presidential candidate Barack Obama cultivated a slew of Wall Street insiders as his financial gurus beginning in 2007.
  • Obama’s quick grasp of the complex economic issues roiling markets in 2008 and his cool demeanor clinched his election.
  • But even before the inauguration, Obama’s economic advisers split into camps on issues like bank reform.

About the Author

Ron Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of The Way of the World, The One-Percent Doctrine and The Price of Loyalty.

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