The Great Texas Banking Crash: An Insider's Account

Rating:
Summary: The FDIC Exposed!
Review: After 30 years in Texas banking, I've seen it all, done it all and thought I had heard it all.... until I read Jody Grant's book. Great inside story. A great book even if you aren't a banker or an ex-banker.

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Summary: Rich Cowboy Writes Vanity Book
Review: I like Texas. I like Texans. I have lived in Texas. As someone that has been annoyed by the Texas nationalist attitude, I found this book unbearable. This guy wrote a vanity book so he could put it on his resume that he is an author. It was published by University of Texas, where the author received his doctorate in economics. Yes that venerable old UT, steeped in tradition, including the tradition of soaking the taxpayer so that rich Texans can get cheap tuition in a state where the poor can expect one of the worst educations in the country.

The authour includes characters in his very personal saga until it reads like "War and Peace." It is clear that he believes in judging a book by it's cover. As if a person's height and weight have some sort of importance to the reader. Those things are only important to the author. There isn't a single claim supported by sound argument in this book. What more could you expect from a man who endorses making loan decisions based on a clients honest/dishonest face. Throughout the book the author never loses this attitude.

The approach is pure "Gone With the Wind." The Yankee carpet baggers ruined everything for Texans!!!! That is a shame, because by sheer coincidence I often agree with him. I do think that the federal government hurt a lot of innocent people in the 1980s with bizzare banking policy, and it was unfair that a few where bailed out by the government for no logical reason, while the many suffered.

If you are from Texas, go ahead and press the disapproval button now. Then stop complaining and go to the polls and vote to take your country out of mine.

Rating:
Summary: A Crash Course In How To Save A Bank
Review: Joseph M. Grant's "The Great Texas Banking Crash : An Insider's Account" is an exceptional diary of the author's attempt to save Texas American Bancshares (TAB) from the collapsing 1980's Texas real estate and oil/gas debacle. It's a tragic story of a man who was given an extremely difficult task: to save a long-revered banking institution, the jobs of thousands of employees, local community ties, etc. Grant goes into meticulous detail in his many attempts to save TAB, from his dealings with potential merger partners, wealthy White Knights, and the Darth Vader of our story, the FDIC and banking clowns who could never get their stories straight.

Grant does an outstanding job of storytelling and the only sad part is knowing the predictable end. Done in by politics, collapsing asset values, and broken promises, Grant struggled to the bitter end, saving as much of the bank's assets and human capital as possible. If all of the other bank and thrift CEO's had put forth a fraction of the effort that Grant put into saving TAB, much less damage would have been done via the S&L crisis and many more institutions would have made it through.

I have only 1 teeny quibble with the book. I would have appreciated more frequent quotes on the stock price of TAB and some of the other banks mentioned throughout the narrative. At times, without charts or recent quotes, you weren't sure if the price was low double-digits or hanging barely above $1 per share when key events took place. Since the book was written before the stock bubble obsessed late 1990's, I can presume that frequent interspersing of quotes wasn't as important then. But this is small potatos in the scheme of things. This book is outstanding and even if the topic is one you never though you'd have interest in, you will finish the book pretty quickly and have a tough time putting it down.

This book would be of interest to anybody with an interest in banking, the financial markets, or Texas history. Even if those aren't your main areas of interest, if you just want to read an in-depth struggle of one man's battles against a whole array of forces aligned against his business and his battle to save it, this is quite enjoyable reading that gives a big picture to an overlooked segment of the S&L debacle.