Refocusing the Discussion of the Mortgage Boom...
Edmund Andrews emails:
The [premise of my] book is that my mortgage was obviously insane, and my goal was to explore how and why it was possible in the first place. [The book] is not a "cautionary tale," or a morality play about Everyman. It's an attempt to show the deception/self-deception and corruption of people at each level in the food chain. The Magazine excerpt is only about my self-delusion as a borrower, but the book tells about all the other players up to and including Greenspan. Those are the best parts...
He asks that the subject of the discussion be the book as a whole rather than just the New York Times Magazine article. I agree: that Edmund Andrews acted somewhat like a moonstruck idiot is not especially interesting--save perhaps in the hands of F. Scott Fitzgerald. That American Home Mortgage and company were willing to finance his acting like an idiot and so drag themelves down as well is somewhat more interesting.
Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown, by Edmund L. Andrews.
