Senseless Panic: How Washington Failed America

Panic is a thoughtful analysis of what went wrong with the nation’s banking system–from mistakes made in the private sector as well as serious missteps by government at various levels of the government. Author George Issac, a Fed insider who wasn’t involved in the botched decision making of 2008, was asked to testify before Congress about the bank rescue plan which he opposed. In this book, he presents a blunt indictment of the US policy.

William Issac, who lead the highly successful efforts to control the great banking and S&L crises of the 1980s and early 1990s, believes that the 2008 crisis was in large part attributable to the misdiagnosis of the banking and S&L crises of the 1980s. He does not hesitate to identify the policy mistakes over the two decades from 1990 to 2008 that led to the crisis of 2008 and the bungling of the crisis by top government leaders, such as Secretary Paulson, that turned that crisis into a PANIC. The book concludes by discussing what must be done to prevent future crises and is highly critical of the current financial reform proposals from the Obama Administration and the Congress, arguing that they are weak and ineffective.