The Weekend That Changed Wall Street

A first-person account of the white-knuckle weekend that brought the financial world to its knees and changed Wall Street forever, from America's most famous business reporter.

During a single historic weekend (September 12-14, 2008) the fate of Lehman Brothers was sealed, Merrill Lynch barely survived, AIG became a ward of the federal government, and the roots of our seemingly strong economy teetered on the edge of collapse. As bankers and government officials scrambled to keep the economy from total collapse, and Americans tried to make sense of it all, top CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo spent the entire weekend taking frantic phone calls from the most powerful players on Wall Street and in Washington.

Those CEOs, politicians, and dozens of other sources gave Bartiromo behind-the- scenes details on the crisis and its aftermath, the personalities involved, and the emotions at work during one of the most stressful periods in American economic history. Now she draws on her high-level network to provide an eyewitness account of the biggest events of the financial crisis, including exclusive interviews with former treasury secretary Henry Paulson, former AIG chairman Hank Greenberg, former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, and former Bear Stearns chairman Ace Greenberg, among many others.

Her sources candidly divulged personal and unreported information. For example, during a commercial break on her show, Paulson, who had been explaining the government bailout package, told her, "In six months, you will understand why we did what we did." It wasn't apparent then, but months later it was revealed that the government's secrecy regarding who got the bailout money was intended to hide the shocking financial condition of Citigroup-the largest bank in the world.