John R. Talbott

Contagion is informative but I prefer Dent's book The Great Depression Ahead. Dent went into more depth and took a broader view of why we're likely to face a depression in the country and worldwide. Talbott focused a gigantic portion of his book on the housing debacle and credit default swaps. He gets to the same conclusion as Dent in the end, but not as thoroughly. Talbott's book is more accessible to most readers than Dent's and it's much quicker to read.

This book delivers a fairly comprehensive review of the financial aspects of Obama's platform, frequently quoting from same at length. The author, as befits his background as a former investment banker, is especially strong on the economic and financial intricacies and impacts of this platform. This author predicted the collapse of the housing market in books dating back to 2003, so the chapters that directly relate to the September 2008 financial meltdown are especially credible and show more interesting and his explanation of arcane financial instruments such as derivatives and credit default swaps (swap = insurance) are clear and instructive.

The book slowed down a bit for me toward the end where the author wandered away from his field of expertise and decided to take a broader ramble through political philosophy, but I will say, his chapter on our aging population and social security was both eye opening and frightening.
I give it a "thumbs up", especially for those looking for a semi-concise summary with comments of Obama's economic plan. show less

Very interesting and time will tell if he is correct in his premise. the information regarding the reasons for the CGFC and the issue of sub prime are great reading - the socialist in me wants the information made available world wide and acted upon. let the american banks takethe crap/wrap and get "off the back"of the POOR. each lie is interspersed with question generators to make you think about the other story. "what does this person advising me have to gain" . A good read but us skimming show more as it does go on. show less

I am not a politics reader but when I came across this book by chance I grabbed it up. After beginning reading it I found I couldn't put it down. I finished it in no time at all. It was a terrific book. It definitely made me see Obama in different eyes (as long as its all true! :) Many of the proposed policies and ideas he has for our country are wonderful as are the authors, John Talbott's suggestions something to be taken into consideration. I very much enjoyed this book and think that you show more will too. I think that Obama just may be our best president yet for the America we have become. We need to become the America we were meant to be and I think that if we took his suggestions discussed in the end of the book, we could come around and make the world a better place, one person at a time! Its time to focus on America, on us and on each other! We are all a big family and we should act like it too! show less