Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans - Book Review

 

Book Review: 5 Stars

Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans (Forbidden Bookshelf Book) by Stephen Pizzo.

It has been said that you can sell the American public anything, even a war. Glib tongued and charismatic Ronald Reagan pulled it off, and he even became a two term president. Only in America!

I found this well-written and remarkable book informative and educational in the extreme. The numerous examples of shyster financial skullduggery are overwhelming.

Excerpts:

Those pushing for deregulation are promising that, if Congress relaxes its hold over them, they’ve learned their lessons from past mistakes and will act only in the best interests of the industry and nation. Congress is, again, in a listening mood. And there’s more lobbyists and more money flowing in their direction than ever before. And once again, those of us with long memories worry.

Of the missing money as much as half had been stolen outright. Yet few of the hit-and-run artists who infiltrated the thrift industry went to jail and little of the money was recovered. In short, these inside jobs not only paid but paid very well

Just when the country needed the best regulators money could buy, those regulators were stopped cold in their tracks by some of the best politicians money had bought. indeed. The savings and loan industry as Americans had known it for 50 years teetered on the edge of collapse.

Not until meaningful campaign finance reform was enacted meaning, public financing and limits on spending would this change. It was simply cheaper to pay for politicians’ campaigns than it was to pay later for their corruption.

The Hoover years from the roaring twenties to the early 1930s left the lasting impression of the great depression and Ronald Reagan would do him one even better. The period that came to be known as “the Reagan years” spawned a wave of graft and corruption along with the Iran-Contra scandal unlike any period in history.

Between 1981 and 1989 the net worth of the 400 richest Americans listed by Forbes magazine rose 300 percent.

At the same time, the federal government debt grew by trillions.

After 50 years of trying to entice the communists into the capitalist camp, the United States was too broke to help them when they finally did capitulate.

Review by John Grimsrud