Chapter 20 and Epilogue Summary and Analysis

Chapter 20 describes the meeting on October 13, 2008 of the nine CEOs of the largest financial institutions in the country with Henry Paulson, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and Sheila Bair. They had all been called to the meeting at the Treasury department in Washington without being told why. Some were worried about what might be happening, others needed to be convinced it truly was an important meeting.

The government leaders had practiced what they would say at the meeting the day before. They intended to invest $250 billion directly into financial institutions as part of the TARP program and they needed the top institutions to participate so that taking the TARP money would not look to the markets like a sign of weakness. They expected some firms would welcome the money. Others, like Goldman and Wells Fargo which were in...