Larry McDonald Former Lehman VP and NY Times Bestselling Author on The Collapse and The Future of the Economy.

Lawrence G. McDonald Senior Director at Newedge and NY Times Bestselling Author of “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense – The

Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers; certainly the first and one of the most comprehensive and well written books on the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the economy as a whole, sat down with me to discuss his life, the book, the fall of Lehman and what he believes is going on with the economy both nationally and internationally.

Lawrence McDonald Audio Interview

►Right Click and “Save Link As” to Download File◄

Larry is known for successfully reading market trends both during the dot com meltdown of 2000 and was one of a group of people at Lehman’s that actively predicted the fall of the real estate markets in 2008 when everyone else was bullish.
I really enjoyed Larry’s book because it is a great story and Larry lays out the confusion of those tense days of crash in a way everyone can understand and

comprehend.
I want to thank Larry’s staff for their time and patience and Larry for the incredible amount of time he spent with me as his schedule is nuts!. – JW

Lawrence G. McDonald

foxpic2

Larry McDonald has written New York Times Best Seller “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense” about the collapse of Lehman Brothers, with Patrick Robinson, the #1 New York Times best selling author of Lone Survivor.

Global Lecture Tour

Larry is on the lecture tour, recently speaking at Universities, Banks, Investment Firms, Law Firms and Insurance companies.

His speaking engagements have been all over the United States, Europe and Asia. He has been a Keynote Speaker at over 20 venues since his book was published.

“A Colossal Failure of Common Sense – the Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers,” was published by Random House 7/21/09, and hit the New York Times bestseller list in its first week. It is now one of the bestselling business books in the world, translated into 12 different languages. Larry is President and Founder of LGM Group, LLC an asset mgmt firm, specializing in Washington, DC policy research and trading, based in New York City.

Larry has been a guest and or contributor on CNBC, MSNBC, the New York Times, Fortune, CNN, CCTV China, France 24, BBC World, BBC America, Barron’s, Channel 4 News London, Bloomberg TV, Fox TV, Fox Radio, CBS, PBS Frontline and NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CBC News Canada, Business Week, The Economist, Die Zeit Germany, Tokyo TV, the Financial Times, Time Magazine, NPR, and the New York Post. Read More…..

The Book

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now. What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers—right from the belly of the beast.

In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider, reveals the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done. The book is couched in the very human story of Larry McDonald’s Horatio Alger-like rise from a Massachusetts “gateway to nowhere” housing project to the New York headquarters of Lehman Brothers, home of one of the world’s toughest trading floors.

We get a close-up view of the participants in the Lehman collapse, especially those who saw it coming with a helpless, angry certainty. We meet the Brahmins at the top, whose reckless, pedal-to-the-floor addiction to growth finally demolished the nation’s oldest investment bank. The Wall Street we encounter here is a ruthless place, where brilliance, arrogance, ambition, greed, capacity for relentless toil, and other human traits combine in a potent mix that sometimes fuels prosperity but occasionally destroys it.

The full significance of the dissolution of Lehman Brothers remains to be measured. But this much is certain: it was a devastating blow to America’s—and the world’s—financial system. And it need not have happened. This is the story of why it did. Read More…..