On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System
By Henry Paulson
Headline Business Plus, £18.99, 459 pages
FT Bookshop price: £15.19
When he reluctantly accepted the job of US treasury secretary in July 2006, Henry (“Hank”) Paulson had little notion of what lay in store. In Washington, the pundits labelled him a caretaker; on Wall Street, bankers quietly celebrated the elevation of one of their own. Within a year, the former head of Goldman Sachs found himself in the middle of the most wrenching financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Paulson's account of his role as fireman-in-chief alongside the Federal Reserve's Ben Bernanke lacks the drama (and the expletives) of Too Big to Fail, the bestseller written by Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times. On the Brink is business-like and sober, just like the man himself. (Paulson is a former Eagle Scout and practising Christian Scientist who counts birdwatching as his favourite pastime.)
Paulson's vantage point is Washington in a presidential election year. He lays bare what he calls the “dysfunctional” US political process, which made it doubly difficult to take the collective action necessary to rescue the financial system in 2008. He offers telling portraits and anecdotes.
President George W Bush comes across as circumspect and more than happy to delegate, contrary to the impetuous, God-fearing crusader of the popular imagination. Barack Obama is cool and detached, seeking regular telephone briefings from the US treasury secretary while on the campaign trail. Paulson is surprised (why?) when those calls stop the day the Democratic nominee is elected president. Sarah Palin, a surprise choice as running mate to John McCain on the Republican ticket, is dismissed as a puffball.