Reviewed by Jim McTague. Here’s an idea for curbing the rapine of all those financial executives thumbing their noses at the taxpayers who rescued them from ruin: Limit their annual salaries to $300,000 to $400,000, and institute three-year performance programs that award bonuses to good stewards, but not the bad.

That’s just one of several provocative ideas found in this thorough, intelligent and straightforward book by money manager Robert Pozen, which traces the ontogeny of the financial crisis and offers ..read more

By John Plender. After two and a half years of relentless financial pounding, the crisis literature is becoming mountainous. To command the weary reviewer’s attention, any new book on the aberrations of the financial community has to have a clear focus and make a compelling case. In Too Big To Save? Robert Pozen, chairman of mutual fund group MFS Investment Management and a former vice-chairman of Fidelity Investments, pulls off the trick. 

By Ross Kerber. University economists are already teaching courses on the history of the financial crisis of 2008 and the policy responses that followed. Robert Pozen’s new book could become required reading.

“Too Big to Save? How to Fix the U.S. Financial System” (Wiley, $29.95), provides both a detailed look at the run-up to the financial system’s brush with disaster and many prescriptions in response.

Most books about the nation’s financial crisis tell us what happened. In his new book, HBS senior lecturer Robert Pozen tells us how to fix the system. A financial industry veteran and chairman of MFS Investment Management, a Boston firm that oversees more than $170 billion in pension and mutual funds, Pozen writes with authority and unusual clarity about complex issues in Too Big to Save? How to Fix the U.S. Financial System (Wiley).

Written by Elizabeth Leonard.

Comprehensive in scope, Too Big to Save looks at each of the factors that played a role in the crisis: the housing boom, subprime loans and the impact of mortgage-backed securities; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; credit default swaps, AIG and collateralized debt obligations; hedge funds and short selling; and capital requirements. But this is not an alphabet soup. These topics are precisely defined and clearly presented in a highly readable and well-paced narrative. Moreover, ..read more

From Brad DeLong’s Egregious Moderation:

The best finance book I’ve read so far this year (and I’ve read a slew of them) is Robert C. Pozen’s Too Big to Save? …

In short, what we have here is the book that every business/finance professor wants needs. Not to assign to his students: nothing to vulgar as that. What you do with Pozen is stuff it in your top drawer and sneak a peek whenever you want to look brilliant. I ..read more

Reviewed by Robert J. Hughes

To everyday consumers, “too big to fail” has become a dubious mantras. Where is the fairness in a government bailout of large banks and corporations that leaves regular people wondering when things are going to turn around for them.

Here, author Pozen, chairman of MFS Investment Management, a lecturer at Harvard Business School and a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, provides an analysis of the financial arrangements the government has used to bolster the economy, with ..read more

by Felix Salmon

“I had a very interesting conversation with Bob Pozen yesterday evening; his new book is out now, and I highly recommend it. It’s the first crisis book to make a detailed series of specific recommendations about what needs to be done going forwards — or, in the words of the book’s subtitle, ‘how to fix the US financial system’.”

Review By Alisa Greenstein

“Robert Pozen, Chairman of MFS Investment Management, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the current global financial crisis in his new book “Too Big To Save? How to Fix the U.S. Financial System.” Pozen’s text provides a detailed framework to analyze the abundance of information about the financial crisis, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to create an effective plan for fixing the financial system in the future. In part ..read more

“Too Big to Save?” — As the chairman of MFS Investment Management, author Robert Pozen has a keen sense of global finance. The subtitle explains his mission, “How to Fix the U.S. Financial System.” Tackles all things technical, from insurance-like credit default swaps to money markets and short selling of stocks … A tough but valuable read for anyone who’s interested in how America gets out of its financial mess. Should be required reading on Capitol Hill.