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Saving The Sun Paperback – 1 Jan. 2004
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House Business Books
- Publication date1 Jan. 2004
- ISBN-101844136094
- ISBN-13978-1844136094
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Product description
About the Author
Gillian Tett is the chairman of the editorial board and editor-at-large at the Financial Times. Best known as the woman who predicted the 2007-8 financial crisis, Tett's bestselling book Fool's Gold was one of the definitive books on the crash.
Tett holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, wher she wrote her dissertation on marriage rituals in Tajikistan. Her work for the FT has taken her around the world - from Brussels to Tokyo to Moscow - and won her numerous awards, including Columnist of the Year at the British Press Awards.
Product details
- Publisher : Random House Business Books; 1st edition (1 Jan. 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1844136094
- ISBN-13 : 978-1844136094
- Customer reviews:
About the author

Gillian Tett serves as the chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large, US of the Financial Times. She writes weekly columns, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues. She is also the co-founder of FT Moral Money, a twice weekly newsletter that tracks the ESG revolution in business and finance which has since grown to be a staple FT product.
Previously, Tett was the FT’s US managing editor from 2013 to 2019. She has also served as assistant editor for the FT’s markets coverage, capital markets editor, deputy editor of the Lex column, Tokyo bureau chief, Tokyo correspondent, London-based economics reporter and a reporter in Russia and Brussels.
Tett is the author of The Silo Effect, which looks at the global economy and financial system through the lens of cultural anthropology. She also authored Fool’s Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe, a 2009 New York Times bestseller and Financial Book of the Year at the inaugural Spear’s Book Awards. Additionally, she wrote the 2003 book Saving the Sun: A Wall Street Gamble to Rescue Japan from its Trillion Dollar Meltdown. Her next book, Anthro-Vision, A New Way to See Life and Business will come out in June 2021.
Tett has received honorary degrees from the Carnegie Mellon, Baruch, the University of Miami in the US, and from Exeter, London and Lancaster University in the UK.
In 2014, Tett won the Royal Anthropological Institute Marsh Award. She has been named Columnist of the Year (2014), Journalist of the Year (2009)and Business Journalist of the Year (2008) at the British Press Awards, and won two awards from the Society of American Business and Economics Writers. Other awards include a President’s Medal by the British Academy (2011), and being recognized as Senior Financial Journalist of the Year (2007) by the Wincott Awards
Before joining the Financial Times in 1993, Tett was awarded a PhD in social anthropology from Cambridge University based on field work in the former Soviet Union. While pursuing the PhD, she freelanced for the FT and the BBC. She is a graduate of Cambridge University.
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appropriate to the Japanese context and
offers an empathetic view of the situation,
of particular interest in this year of the Tokyo Olympics.
In Japan, certainly from WW11 the State viewed that capital,and finance for reconstruction, growth, and prosperity, was in essence the responsibility of the banking sector and banks like Long Term Credit Bank (LTCB) were directed to concentrate it's efforts to virtually little else but supporting Japanese commercial concerns. This worked fine and it kick-started the country's economic machine leading to the re-emergence of Japan as a major player on the world's commercial stage.
However, the culture in the government fiscal departments was companies that received capital financing from a bank became de facto 'children' of that institution, and the bank the 'parent'. And as parents were always expected to support their children, when financial difficulties arose further money was advanced with little or no regard to whether is was likely to be repaid. Consequently over the years vast sums of money was shovelled out to companies, with absolutely no reasonable expectation of ever being repaid.
Surprisingly, the Banking Regulatory Authorities and Auditors were seemingly unconcerned with the unreported, and unrecorded build-up of colossal bad debts littering just about every bank's balance sheet. The probable reason for this covert approach was that had anywhere near the full extent of the banks bad debts been in the public domain, then the whole Japanese economy would have collapsed with severe consequences on other nation's financial equilibriums. It would have been a veritable fiscal tsunami causing horrendous damage over a wide area.
This book tells the story of LTCB's growth from a relative minnow into one of the major 'capital' lenders, and attempts to diversify into investment banking. Bad Debts when finally grudgingly acknowledge meant that it had to be nationalised to stave off bankruptcy, and much against the better judgement of Japanese politicians and most regulators, was sold to a consortium headed by Ripplewood Inc, an Wall Street Equity Investment vehicle run by ex. Lazard Freres executive Tim Collins. Joining Collins in this deal was the renowned 'deal maker' J Christopher Flowers, who had been a senior executive at Goldman Sachs.
Because the Ripplewood purchase included a guarantee from the Japanese authorities to 'buy-back' in the first few years, all emerging cases of bad debts, there was a concentration by the new management to expose all potential problems in order to get recompense before the deadline, and this exposed the gulf of differences between Japanese and Wall Street methodology resulting in a wave of hostility from the Japanese towards the 'gaigin' (foreigners} from America.
Gillian Letts is a remarkable narrator of modern day economic history, giving the reader sufficient technical background to understand the complexities but not befuddle whilst maintaining optimum interest. A really first class read that has taken me a long way towards understanding the Japanese way of thinking and trading.
Come on Ms Letts we need more books from you of the high calibre of this and your second book "Fools Gold", a fascinating and detailed look at the recent Credit Crunch crisis, seen through the prism of the venerable investment bank J P Morgan!
