Can knowing how a financial crisis happened keep it from happening again? Sheila Bair, the former chairman of the FDIC, explains how the Great Recession impacted families on a personal level in this easy-to-understand book âthat puts a human face on the economic crisisâ (School Library Journal).
In 2008, America went through a terrible financial crisis, and we are still suffering the consequences. Families lost their homes and struggled to pay for food and medicine. Businesses didnât have money to buy equipment or hire and pay workers. Millions of people lost their jobs and their life savings. More than 100,000 businesses went bankrupt.
As the former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Sheila Bair worked to protect families during the crisis and keep their bank deposits safe. In The Bullies of Wall Street, she describes the many ways in which a broken system led families into financial trouble, and also explains the decisions being made at the time by the most powerful people in the countryâfrom CEOs of multinational banks, to heads of government regulatory committeesâthat led to the recession.