Book Review: Busted: life inside the great mortgage meltdown
Andrews, Edmund L. Busted : life inside the great mortgage meltdown. W. W. Norton, 2009.
Busted is a personal and penetrating account of one man’s experience with purchasing an overpriced house with a subprime mortgage. Written by an economics reporter for the New York Times, the author is aware of the economic and financial risks, yet he succumbs to temptation and buys a house he cannot afford. With his judgment impaired by his emotions – he is in love – Andrews enters into a vortex of debt from credit cards and desperate refinancing on his home.
Andrews ends up ruined financially. He claims responsibility, but he also blames the mortgage brokers and real estate appraisers, money lenders and Wall Street players, credit rating agencies, institutional investors and Washington policymakers. Eventually he blames his ex-wife. One person he does not blame is his new wife. The Atlantic later reported that he failed to disclose Andrews’s new wife’s history of bankruptcy.
This is not a book with a happy ending. Yet this blunt tale of personal ruin is riveting and well worth the investment in time.
© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.
Tags: Consumer behavior, Credit, Financial Crisis, Mortgage Crisis