Hank Paulson’s new book is called On the Brink, but it could well have been entitled Over the Edge.
Hank Paulson’s new book is called On the Brink, but it could well have been entitled Over the Edge. The story of his role as US Treasury Secretary throughout the great banking crash of 2008–9 gives an impression of people being swept along by a swirling chaos of unexpected events, often completely out of control.
‘This is the economic equivalent of war,’ Paulson said in the middle of the financial crisis in 2008, scrambling to find a resolution for AIG before the insurance behemoth brought down the entire economy. Warfare is certainly what it felt like. For those who lived out the financial crisis on trading desks around the world, reading Paulson’s account will be like reliving the nightmare weekend when Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008.
The story starts with Paulson agonising over whether to accept the job as Treasury Secretary in an administration that had become terminally unpopular, not least with his own family.
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