The Financial Crisis – A Tragic Comedy
Appears on 15 April 2015
Extract (german)

Wiley VCH Verlag, 220 pages, April 2015

If you want reunification“, Mitterrand said to Kohl, “then you must give up your Deutschmark and join the monetary union.

By this he meant: You can take over the small German Democratic Republic, on the condition that you join a large German Democratic Republic; which will become the Eurozone.

Kohl suspected what it could mean.

Nevertheless, he said yes.

We all know the real “protagonists” of the financial crisis: the politicians, the bankers and the citizens, for whom it all boils down to one thing: money. And we know what has been publicly announced about decisions, reasons for the crisis, and possible solutions. And it all sounds – apart from there being “no alternative” – quite glossy, meaningless and somehow boring.

What would be interesting is to get a look behind the scenes, to peep through the keyhole. And to imagine what they said when they were getting down to the nitty-gritty. What were the conversations like, between the kingpins of business, politics and finance? How did the crisis really come about? Who helped it along? Who was overcome by events? And who conspired with whom in the hope of coming out of the whole mess relatively unscathed?

In this book, the experienced crime writer, banker and strategy consultant Veit Etzold gives free rein to his fantasy and explains in a humorous and enlightening manner the course of the financial crisis between 2007 and 2013. Watch the bubble burst in 2007, consider the US government’s rescue measures and the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in 2008, witness the spread of the crisis to the real economy in Europe and the United States in 2009, the consequent economic programmes and the Greek bankruptcy, with its attendant aid programmes and bailout funds – you, as reader, can watch this tragic comedy of the financial crisis unfold from the first row!

Interview with Radio Leipzig about the book presentation on the Leipziger Buchmesse, March 2015 (German)

Interview with Veit Etzold in „Wirtschaft in Sachsen“ on his book „The Financial crisis – a tragic comedy“ (German) pdf

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