The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One
How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry
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Narrated by:
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Scotty Drake
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By:
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William K. Black
About this listen
In this expert insider's account of the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s, William Black lays bare the strategies that corrupt CEOs and CFOs - in collusion with those who have regulatory oversight of their industries - use to defraud companies for their personal gain. Recounting the investigations he conducted as Director of Litigation for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Black fully reveals how Charles Keating and hundreds of other S&L owners took advantage of a weak regulatory environment to perpetrate accounting fraud on a massive scale.
In the new afterword, he also authoritatively links the S&L crash to the business failures of 2008 and beyond, showing how CEOs then and now are using the same tactics to defeat regulatory restraints and commit the same types of destructive fraud.
Black drives home the larger point that control fraud is a major, ongoing threat in business that requires active, independent regulators to contain it. His book is a wake-up call for everyone who believes that market forces alone will keep companies and their owners honest.
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The independence of the Federal Reserve is considered a cornerstone of its identity, crucial for keeping monetary policy decisions free of electoral politics. But do we really understand what is meant by "Federal Reserve independence"? Using scores of examples from the Fed's rich history, The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve shows that much common wisdom about the nation's central bank is inaccurate.
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Meandering, gossipy, a bit pop-journalistic
- By Philo on 10-03-16
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Borrowed Time
- Two Centuries of Booms, Busts, and Bailouts at Citi
- By: James Freeman, Vern McKinley
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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To save the economy and keep Citi afloat in 2008, the government provided huge infusions of cash through multiple bailouts that frustrated and angered the American public. But, as Wall Street Journal writer James Freeman and financial expert Vern McKinley reveal, the 2008 crisis was just one of many disasters Citi has experienced since its founding more than 200 years ago. In Borrowed Time they reveal Citi’s disturbing history of instability and government support. It’s a story that neither Citi nor Washington wants told.
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Biased
- By CF on 08-09-19
By: James Freeman, and others
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All the Presidents' Bankers
- The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power
- By: Nomi Prins
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Nomi Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how financiers have retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation.
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You better like history about the elite and rich
- By Victor on 01-12-15
By: Nomi Prins
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The Hellhound of Wall Street
- How Ferdinand Pecora's Investigation of the Great Crash Forever Changed American Finance
- By: Michael Perino
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Hellhound of Wall Street, Michael Perino recounts in riveting detail the 1933 hearings that put Wall Street on trial for the Great Crash. Never before in American history had so many financial titans been called to account before the public, and they had come within a few weeks of emerging unscathed. By the time Ferdinand Pecora, a Sicilian immigrant and former New York prosecutor, took over as chief counsel, the investigation had dragged on ineffectively for nearly a year and was universally written off as dead....
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Great Story
- By Lynn on 03-22-11
By: Michael Perino
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Bought and Paid For
- The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street
- By: Charles Gasparino
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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According to business reporter Charles Gasparino, President Obama is faking his outrage at Wall Street, and his calls for new policies to rein in banks that are "too big to fail" are just pabulum. In reality, Obama has climbed into bed with Wall Street CEOs, giving them what they want so they will support his liberal, big-government agenda.
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Revealing and Convincing
- By Walter on 10-24-11
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Volcker
- The Triumph of Persistence
- By: William L. Silber
- Narrated by: Ross Douglas
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the course of nearly half a century, five American presidents - three Democrats and two Republicans - have relied on the financial acumen, and the integrity, of Paul A. Volcker. During his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, when he battled the Great Inflation of the 1970s, Volcker did nothing less than restore the reputation of an American financial system on the verge of collapse.
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Required Reading for 2022 Economy
- By Marc Uknis on 11-19-22
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Trickle Down Tyranny
- Crushing Obama's Dreams of a Socialist America
- By: Michael Savage
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Trickle Down Tyranny is the single book you need to stop Obama's emerging dictatorship before we lose all of our constitutional, God-given rights. These pages show you the dangerous laws and powergrabs of the Obama administration… and what we can do to stop this leftist gang from seizing another term in office. Obama is transforming us into a second-class nation, with communists and Islamists given free rein to expand their power.
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Brings Clarity to the Obama charade.
- By Mrs. Stolle on 04-05-12
By: Michael Savage
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American Default
- The Untold Story of FDR, the Supreme Court, and the Battle over Gold
- By: Sebastian Edwards
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The American economy is strong in large part because nobody believes that America would ever default on its debt. Yet in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that, when in a bid to pull the country out of depression, he depreciated the US dollar in relation to gold, effectively annulling all debt contracts. American Default is the story of this forgotten chapter in America's history.
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Superb
- By Jean on 12-08-18
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The Case for Impeachment
- By: Allan J. Lichtman
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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What are the ranges and limitations of presidential authority? What are the standards of truthfulness that a president must uphold? What will it take to impeach Donald J. Trump? Professor Allan J. Lichtman, who has correctly forecasted 30 years of presidential outcomes, answers these questions, and more, in The Case for Impeachment - a deeply convincing argument for impeaching the 45th president of the United States.
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Every American should read this!
- By Daniel Ballard on 04-24-17
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Putin's Kleptocracy
- Who Owns Russia?
- By: Karen Dawisha
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha’s brilliant Putin’s Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia.
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Who owns Russia
- By Amazon Customer on 11-09-14
By: Karen Dawisha
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Overhaul
- An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry
- By: Steven Rattner
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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This first real look inside Team Obama mixes political warfare and big-business shakeups in equal proportions, and comes from a uniquely informed source. Steve Rattner is not just the man brought in by the president to save the auto industry, he is a former New York Times financial reporter who also earned a place among the top tier of Wall Street's most informed investment bankers and corporate experts.
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Overhaul - A Memoir
- By Roy on 12-05-10
By: Steven Rattner
What listeners say about The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 12-22-23
Timely
History often rhymes and this book offers critical insight into the current market where control frauds have run amok.
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- Philo
- 03-29-15
Bank frauds and their pet regulators, 1980s-2000s
Another title might be, "mud wrestling in a tangled snake pit over the privilege to steal other people's money." Yet another, "a bipartisan masterpiece of machinations and sleaze: following the bread crumbs, naming names, good and bad, and among the bad, the incredibly slippery." A few slither away with big money, and the final bill, in a familiar story, is handed to the taxpayer, with Congress hacks helping the perps, greatly enlarging that bill, and altogether making us all measurably poorer for life.
This may be a by-product of every go-go era, and go-go-eras have produced some great good for the public. This book focuses on the exploiters of such times, and I think we probably have another such prosperous phase of the cycle coming (so watch out).
Did Alan Greenspan really say he thought there shouldn't be fraud laws (as attributed here, as having been remarked to Brooksley Born?) If so, wow.
People plus econ theory can go to some very abstract, exotic places. That is, until one realizes: many hacks in the private and public sectors have their bread fundamentally buttered with information asymmetry: they actively embrace the view of a world of suckers and the suckered. The manipulators (and their house theory-propounders) make huge fortunes from it, want it, and must think the defrauded get what they deserve. Why should we slow down and take note of the fools who just haven't paid the information costs of being kingpins (and thus, in a sense, deserve their losses, and bargained for them)?
It is an interesting ethos and set of questions. Some version of it is also a central cash flow machine for a huge political and business elite, despite the protestations of many (hauling out the easy bumper sticker phrase) that this is merely the magical free market in operation. (Adam Smith knew better, castigating fraud and what is now called agency problems, but who really reads him? Might as well watch the adult cartoons on TV creatively cherry-picking his writings.) After all, the market finds its equilibrium at some point, and by then, the winners have unassailable amounts of winnings, free and clear and oh-so-cleverly stashed. The armies of well-greased syncophant experts see to that. Except that the defrauded in this latest round of this phenomenon (2008) are unprecedented numbers of the rest of us, especially via the system of government-(taxpayers)-as-insurance-for-the-macro-economy joined at the hip with continuing permissiveness of fraud. Watch it unfold again now: now whenever everybody's fear of macro-disaster subsides, the next echo of this familiar financing bubble will take off. Since interest rates can't and won't be lowered soon, the answer (proposed by many) to juice up the economy will be sharp financial deregulation. And again, as in this book, the downsizing of things like bank examiner budgets. The regulated businesses will again be touted by regulators as "our clients." And surprise, into many cronies' pockets, vast amounts of cash will flow. Everybody will feel (at least potentially) rich and studly for a little while, then comes the inevitable denouement. (I can't assume from this small sample that the cycles will continue to shorten and steepen. But it concerns me.)
And it feeds back into both major parties' coffers, and some very big political names, keeping the dance going longer, for bigger looting and losses, as this book shows.
This book spends most of its time in a blow-by-blow of the '80s S&L affair in which this author was a prime participant from the government enforcement side. (This is not the entire history: the inquisitive reader can look for more background as to why S&Ls were in the ditch they were, for which the answer SEEMED to some, and some in good faith, to deregulate, to give some slack to the floundering industry, to climb out of its ditch. As usual, bipartisan fingerprints were all over the mess from way back. That larger history isn't quite all here, and isn't the apparent intention of this book, which is much more about the direct trench warfare.)
People with an interest in this subject and its players will find it pretty absorbing (some will find it maddening, either at the author and those he praises, or those he pillories, or maybe some mix thereof). Having shown the most connected '80s crooks dispatched finally, after a titanic struggle finally winding up in climactic hearing scenes in Congress, it picks up speed to tie together a bigger picture historically and economically (from the author's particular viewpoint) in about the last one-fifth of the book. He is quite critical of public choice theory and other conservative concepts that, I think, can be very meaningful and important. But I don't get the sense of a blinkered ideologue.
It was my honor to meet one of this book's heroes, Edwin Gray, later Bank Board Chairman, informally, in the early Reagan era. He infuriated a lot of well-connected people by actually doing his job, even after severe pressure was brought by many powerful and connected people. We can compare this civil servant, ungainly character traits and all, with the party hack later put into the regulators' ranks who, per the author, could not shut up about the fancy tricked-out interior and sound system of arch-crook-banker Charles Keating's jet. The latter sort of naive young apparatchiks were intentionally salted into the ranks of the regulators, by those for whom government is always and everywhere nothing but "the problem." Why not, in that vein, hire cops who are in awe of Pablo Escobar's car collection?
And yet, next to the magnitude of crony cash flows these days, and the bitter rhetoric and broken consensus-reaching process, one can feel nostalgic for Reagan and his ability to work across the political spectrum and often lead in very good and productive directions, too. He was not simply a one-trick pony, as many of the cartoonish supposed imitators are now. But in the shadow of any and every system, some strange critters can grow.
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- -Bryan
- 02-25-16
A Must Get book
Absolutely amazing. You must get this book. Best book I've listened to in the last 4 years.
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