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Whoops!

Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay

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Whoops!

By: John Lanchester
Narrated by: Jonathan Iris
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About this listen

In 2000, the total GDP of Earth was $36 trillion. At the start of 2007, it was $70 trillion. Today that growth has gone suddenly and sharply into decline.

John Lanchester travels with a cast of characters - including reckless bankers, snoozing regulators, complacent politicians, predatory lenders, credit-drunk spendthrifts, and innocent bystanders, to understand deeply and genuinely what is happening and why we feel the way we do.

©2010 John Lanchester (P)2010 WF Howes Ltd Economics Thought-Provoking Global Financial Crisis Great Recession

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Critic reviews

"A valiant and genuinely amusing attempt to describe how finance came off the rails...written with a good heart and a lively intellectual curiosity. ( Independent)
All stars
Most relevant  
I'm not a financial person but have been effected by what happened. I think that when you listen to this book you'll get angry as you hear what these "banks" where up to and how they made so much money at no risk to themselves, just the taxpayers footing the bill if it went wrong. Still no action taken really to stop this from happening again and how our governments and regulators failed us.

You couldn't make this up

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What happened 10 yrs ago which lead to collapse in the financial system and no bank interest and falling wages for many workers, for at least the next decade? This book begins to explain and proposes remedies. Sadly it also concedes such reforms won't be implemented. The author appears to believe "there is however no alternative economic system". He's wrong. The young and the disadvantaged simply won't accept being frozen out like this. Change is coming.

Deeply pessimistic, very well written.

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I've read and listened to several other books on the 2007 crash and am late to this one, but this is one of the best. It is about as clear an account of the meaning, origin and development of credit default swaps, collateralised debt obligations and sub-prime mortgages as you will get.

Ten years on much of what he predicts has come to pass, and the rest has still probably yet to happen, as successive governments have managed to just about keep the sinking ship afloat.

As clear as it gets

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This book has tackled a diificult subject and made it interesting and accessible. The author is very knowledgeable but he puts over his knowledge in a very clear and witty way.
I have been telling all my friends about it and I hope it has a well deserved sucess

essential but witty

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Would you listen to Whoops! again? Why?

I worked in banking for over 30 years and found this audio book clear and easy to follow. I have listened to it a couple of times to remind myself why the global markets are in a mess.

What did you like best about this story?

I found the information up to date and esay to follow

What about Jonathan Iris’s performance did you like?

The narrator's performance is spot on, neither boring or too excitable. Just what a book of this content needs.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I found myself shouting outloud in agreement with the book

Any additional comments?

I would recommend this book to anyone you don't need to be an economist to understand it !

Financial crisis

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A complicated subject laid bare in an accessible format that assumes no prior knowledge. Of course it could all be nonsense but it rings true because it doesn't have any overt political agenda.

Listened to it twice, back to back, because there is so much to take in, and the earlier chapters take on new meanings having gone through the whole thing, and I anticipate doing so many more times in the future.

Terrifyingly clear

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This is wonderfully easy-to-read yet clever and insightful account of the financial crisis and its causes. Recommended for everyone!

Accessible but clever

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Very easy to understand and funny. Explained the topic brilliantly. It showed very clearly why the crash was caused and what happened after.

Informative and Funny economics

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This is a good book on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis by the author of Capital (a state of the nation novel set in London in the midst of the crisis). He is a compelling writer and I enjoyed the book. Its like a British version of Michael Lewis' Big Short.

However whenever the narration reaches a point where it is a direct quote from one of the actors in the crisis or well known politicians, businessmen or financiers with opinions on it, it goes into an approximation of their accent. Every time it is a British person there is someone reading out the quote in a plummy RP accent, and every time it is an American it is a bad impersonation of an American accent. This would be tolerable, even amusing, if every quote was by someone you had never heard of, but many of the people quoted are quite famous, and the voices bear no relation to their own. So Warren Buffet, a measured and avuncular Midwesterner, is quoted in the voice of a cowboy with sunstroke. Alan Greenspan, a patrician New York academic is quoted in the voice of Colonel Sanders.

It ruins a good audio book. I wish they'd used the same narrator as Capital did, and dispensed with the half baked impressions.

Good book spoilt by accented quotes in narration

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I'm not savvy when it comes to the financial knowledge matter and how the financial crashes that came about actually occurred. This book allowed me to get a better understanding of why the financial crisis came about. I must admit I did feel very angry as to what the banks get away with and how the financial bosses get away without being challenged.

How can the financial institutes get away?

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