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It Takes a Pillage: An Epic Tale of Power, Deceit, and Untold Trillions
A former Wall Street manager turned muckraking journalist gets inside how the banks looted the Treasury, stole the bailout, and continued with business as usual We all watched as packs of former Big Financiers commandeered posts in Washington and lavished trillions in bailouts to "save" big Wall Street firms that used that money for anything and everything except to fill in Main Street's potholes. We all watched as Wall Street heavyweights fought tooth and nail to declaw financial reform and won. Former Wall Streeter Nomi Prins has been watching, too, and she is not going to let them get away with it. More than just an angry populist, commentator stuck on the sidelines, Prins understand Big Finance and big money and big schemes-and in this book she exposes the fundamental follies of our economic system and the schemes of the bigwigs who have no intention of letting it change. If you're still enraged and frustrated with how the bank bailout went bust for the American people, or how Wall Street continues to operate as if the rest of the world doesn't matter, or how the banks are once again rolling in outsized profits and obscene bonuses while average Americans continue to struggle through a bleak landscape of foreclosures and job loss, It Takes a Pillage gives voice to your outrage, and provides a deeper insight into what we really have to be angry about and how we can fight for some real change.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Nomi Prins
15 books226 followersNomi Prins is a former global investment banker, financial journalist, and sought-after international speaker and economic advisor, Her new book Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World is out May 1, 2018. Her previous books include All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power , It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, a devastating expose into corporate corruption, political collusion and Wall Street deception which was chosen as a Best Book of 2004 by The Economist, Barron's and The Library Journal., Jacked, and the thriller, The Trail, published under her pseudonym, Natalia Prentice which was selected to Forbes CEO Book Club in April, 2008.
Before becoming a journalist, Nomi worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and a Senior managing director running the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London. She has appeared internationally on BBC World and BBC Radio and nationally in the U.S. on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS, CSPAN and other TV stations and been featured on dozens of radio shows including CNNRadio, Marketplace Radio, Air America, NPR, and various BBC stations. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Newsday, Fortune, Forbes, Mother Jones, Slate.com, The Guardian UK, The Nation, The American Prospect, and other publications.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
June 22, 2011
I originally picked this book up because of a quote Matt Taibbi included in his blog:
So the next time someone says the financial meltdown was caused by irresponsible poor people who took out loans they could never afford to repay I want you to think about that quote. Subprime mortgages may have been the catalyst, but they were definitely not the root cause. (That would be leveraging, among other things. But it's totally okay when a company borrows more money than it could repay in order to gamble. It's just when people do it that it's a problem).
The other reason I wanted to pick up this book was so that I could understand how the bailout was actually disbursed. The book helped with that. Prins tried not to be too technical and explained terms of art but there were still times I found it incredibly dry and difficult to follow.
I would have really benefited from a Dramatis Personae with a brief listing of relevant occupations held and how that player was tied to Goldman Sachs. (All or nearly all the major players were tied to Goldman in some way. Either they worked for Goldman directly or were mentored by someone who did).
After reading this book I am reluctantly forced to conclude that if you want to blame an administration for the 2008 collapse you need to look to Clinton, not George W. Bush. It was under Clinton that Glass-Steagal was gleefully repealed. His administration also helped to end other important regulations, but Glass-Steagal was the most important. (And the fact that it hasn't been reimplemented is all you need to know about how serious the current Congress and administration is about actually fixing the problem and making sure it doesn't happen again).
I've also come to feel that while I certainly blame Wall Street for what happened, I blame Congress and the President (from Reagan to Obama) even more.
Bankers are supposed to make money. They know they can ignore the rules with impunity. For some insane reason, they do not have a fiduciary duty to their clients, only to their shareholders. (The reason they don't have a fiduciary duty to their clients is no doubt because it would conflict with their fiduciary duty to their shareholders). Their job is basically to exploit the system however they can.
It's the job of Congress and the President to protect the American people (and by extension, the rest of the world) from the predatory nature of big banks. They are the ones who make and enforce regulations. On this count they have failed catastrophically and, sadly, continue to fail.
Congress has allowed every single surviving major bank to get substantially bigger since 2008. If they were "too big to fail" then, what the hell are they now?
Prins ends the book with some recommendations on how to fix the mess we're in. She believes we need to freeze the banks and completely restructure them, just as FDR did. I believe she is correct that it is the only way we can prevent this from happening again and I'm equally convinced it will never happen.
She ends by telling people to write their Congressmen and women. She has more faith in the system than I. I believe that we could start with a completely fresh slate for the next elections and by the time people were elected the banks would have bought enough of them (via campaign donations and third party ads, etc) to guarantee that no meaningful reform would take place.
Here are some numbers for you. There were approximtely $1.4 trillion worth of subprime loans outstanding in the United States by the end of 2007. By the first quarter of 2009, there were forclosure filings against approximately 4.4 million properties. If it was only the subprime market's fault, $1.4 trillion would have covered the entire problem, right?
Yet the Federal Reserve, the treasury, and the FDIC forked out $13 trillion to fix the housing “correction”… With all that money, the government could have bought up every residential mortgage in the country – there were about $11.9 trillion worth at the end of December 2008 – and still have had about a trillion left over to buy homes for every American who couldn’t afford them.
So the next time someone says the financial meltdown was caused by irresponsible poor people who took out loans they could never afford to repay I want you to think about that quote. Subprime mortgages may have been the catalyst, but they were definitely not the root cause. (That would be leveraging, among other things. But it's totally okay when a company borrows more money than it could repay in order to gamble. It's just when people do it that it's a problem).
The other reason I wanted to pick up this book was so that I could understand how the bailout was actually disbursed. The book helped with that. Prins tried not to be too technical and explained terms of art but there were still times I found it incredibly dry and difficult to follow.
I would have really benefited from a Dramatis Personae with a brief listing of relevant occupations held and how that player was tied to Goldman Sachs. (All or nearly all the major players were tied to Goldman in some way. Either they worked for Goldman directly or were mentored by someone who did).
After reading this book I am reluctantly forced to conclude that if you want to blame an administration for the 2008 collapse you need to look to Clinton, not George W. Bush. It was under Clinton that Glass-Steagal was gleefully repealed. His administration also helped to end other important regulations, but Glass-Steagal was the most important. (And the fact that it hasn't been reimplemented is all you need to know about how serious the current Congress and administration is about actually fixing the problem and making sure it doesn't happen again).
I've also come to feel that while I certainly blame Wall Street for what happened, I blame Congress and the President (from Reagan to Obama) even more.
Bankers are supposed to make money. They know they can ignore the rules with impunity. For some insane reason, they do not have a fiduciary duty to their clients, only to their shareholders. (The reason they don't have a fiduciary duty to their clients is no doubt because it would conflict with their fiduciary duty to their shareholders). Their job is basically to exploit the system however they can.
It's the job of Congress and the President to protect the American people (and by extension, the rest of the world) from the predatory nature of big banks. They are the ones who make and enforce regulations. On this count they have failed catastrophically and, sadly, continue to fail.
Congress has allowed every single surviving major bank to get substantially bigger since 2008. If they were "too big to fail" then, what the hell are they now?
Prins ends the book with some recommendations on how to fix the mess we're in. She believes we need to freeze the banks and completely restructure them, just as FDR did. I believe she is correct that it is the only way we can prevent this from happening again and I'm equally convinced it will never happen.
She ends by telling people to write their Congressmen and women. She has more faith in the system than I. I believe that we could start with a completely fresh slate for the next elections and by the time people were elected the banks would have bought enough of them (via campaign donations and third party ads, etc) to guarantee that no meaningful reform would take place.
February 24, 2010
For anyone who wishes to understand in detail what led up to our latest financial crash (and why we will have another one), this is a must read.
Prins' previous book, Other People's Money, was excellent, but dense with financial biz terms and too much minutae.
This one is written for the rest of us, not dumbed down, but making clear exactly how Wall Street held us up at gun point and changed the laws allowing them to do it. And are still doing it.
November 18, 2009
Between Prins and Taibbi I don't see how you can really think of the new boss as being much different than the old boss.
December 8, 2009
Not fun to read; it was composed too quickly. But overall it tells a compelling story about how financialization imperils the US economy.
February 24, 2021
Though Nomi Prins writes with a sense of humor and clarifies complicated financial constructs, this book is a challenging read. I struggle to say it is a "rewarding" read, however, because the only reward I get is that I understand just how financial institutions -- who made risky bets on the market and naturally borrowed 10-30 times the best case scenario value of those risky assets -- went to the government pocketbook to draw $13 trillion to patch up the losses. Is it "rewarding" to know how you were swindled when you've been swindled?
That $13 trillion is such a big number I can't even understand it, but it came out of my pocket, along with the pockets of all US taxpayers... to allow the big financial institutions to keep their bonuses and risky business as usual.
"With that money, the government could have bought up every residential mortgage in the country—there were about $11.9 trillion worth at the end of December 2008—and still have had a trillion left over to buy homes for every single American who couldn’t afford them, and pay their health care to boot." But they didn't; the money didn't help a single mortgage owner, it helped a bank that lost money.
The book is 1/3 footnotes; the one for the statement above comes from Data from the United States Federal Reserve Board of Governors, http://www.federalreserve.gov/econres....
Groups like AIG, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, etc. have been allowed to get into this crisis because of Clinton's repeal of the depression-era Glass Steagall Act. The act had separated banks who loan to consumers from "investment banks" who take speculative risks in the market. Prins writes, "You may get tired of my beating this dead horse, but you have to believe me: the horse totally deserves it. I cannot overstate the value of Glass Steagall. If it had not been repealed a decade ago, our current banking system meltdown would not have occurred. Deposits and loans would not have been used as collateral for an upside down pyramid of risky securities." The US Govt will support a savings bank, but it won't be responsible for a risky investment bank. But if the two merge... then...
I highly recommend this and Nomi Prins' other books to help you understand our current economy, and the state of "free market" capitalism... where capitalists get to keep the profits, but get bailed out by the US taxpayers in case a risk didn't pay out. She even provided a chapter of "how to fix it" at the end, in case any of us would like to take to the streets welding "I <3 Glass Steagall" placards.
That $13 trillion is such a big number I can't even understand it, but it came out of my pocket, along with the pockets of all US taxpayers... to allow the big financial institutions to keep their bonuses and risky business as usual.
"With that money, the government could have bought up every residential mortgage in the country—there were about $11.9 trillion worth at the end of December 2008—and still have had a trillion left over to buy homes for every single American who couldn’t afford them, and pay their health care to boot." But they didn't; the money didn't help a single mortgage owner, it helped a bank that lost money.
The book is 1/3 footnotes; the one for the statement above comes from Data from the United States Federal Reserve Board of Governors, http://www.federalreserve.gov/econres....
Groups like AIG, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, etc. have been allowed to get into this crisis because of Clinton's repeal of the depression-era Glass Steagall Act. The act had separated banks who loan to consumers from "investment banks" who take speculative risks in the market. Prins writes, "You may get tired of my beating this dead horse, but you have to believe me: the horse totally deserves it. I cannot overstate the value of Glass Steagall. If it had not been repealed a decade ago, our current banking system meltdown would not have occurred. Deposits and loans would not have been used as collateral for an upside down pyramid of risky securities." The US Govt will support a savings bank, but it won't be responsible for a risky investment bank. But if the two merge... then...
I highly recommend this and Nomi Prins' other books to help you understand our current economy, and the state of "free market" capitalism... where capitalists get to keep the profits, but get bailed out by the US taxpayers in case a risk didn't pay out. She even provided a chapter of "how to fix it" at the end, in case any of us would like to take to the streets welding "I <3 Glass Steagall" placards.
February 19, 2023
Having lived through the 2007-2009 financial crisis/meltdown, when I heard about the book by Nomi Prins examining the genesis of the downfall, I sought it out eagerly. Considering her experience at Goldman Sachs and related "insider" jobs back in her earlier years, I viewed her book as an opportunity to learn more about the culprits, conspiracies and coverups of what she repeatedly refers to as the "Second Great Bank Depression."
And she does, indeed, name names and point fingers. Repeatedly. To the point of distraction. Yes- many of those named did, indeed, "blow it", but we pretty much know all that already. Instead, how about telling us, and the World, what specifically should have been done, and when, and by whom? The book begins with promise, but soon reveals its obsession with repeated recitations of misdeeds and mishandlings without providing a helpful account of what specifically not to do when the financial conditions degenerate into that potential abyss once again. What could have, and should have been done to the culprits who got off pretty much Scott-free?
The book is very well documented and annotated. I was just hoping for it to serve moreso as a text for the investing public and future students of financial management and as a guidebook for how Capitalism doesn't need to necessarily provide ample opportunity for those who seek to exploit it for purely personal profit. Winston Churchill once famously stated that "... democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." The same could be said for Capitalism as a financial system- and this book could have been the one to ascribe that message for the ages.
And she does, indeed, name names and point fingers. Repeatedly. To the point of distraction. Yes- many of those named did, indeed, "blow it", but we pretty much know all that already. Instead, how about telling us, and the World, what specifically should have been done, and when, and by whom? The book begins with promise, but soon reveals its obsession with repeated recitations of misdeeds and mishandlings without providing a helpful account of what specifically not to do when the financial conditions degenerate into that potential abyss once again. What could have, and should have been done to the culprits who got off pretty much Scott-free?
The book is very well documented and annotated. I was just hoping for it to serve moreso as a text for the investing public and future students of financial management and as a guidebook for how Capitalism doesn't need to necessarily provide ample opportunity for those who seek to exploit it for purely personal profit. Winston Churchill once famously stated that "... democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." The same could be said for Capitalism as a financial system- and this book could have been the one to ascribe that message for the ages.
March 21, 2023
To be honest I mostly skimmed this book. While this book reads easier than Other People's Money (and it shorter), it is still incredibly dense and detailed. I generally could do well when she was writing in a more general sense about what was happening, but when she began to write about individual people it just got difficult to keep track of them.
But it's great way to show exactly how these individuals create country wide chaos, but I may not always remember the names throughout the book is all.
The concepts brought up here are different than Other's People Money, the themes are the same because...well greed. It's just done in a different way this time.
Generally a well thought out and informative book.
But it's great way to show exactly how these individuals create country wide chaos, but I may not always remember the names throughout the book is all.
The concepts brought up here are different than Other's People Money, the themes are the same because...well greed. It's just done in a different way this time.
Generally a well thought out and informative book.
August 21, 2025
A great reading of how the economic meltdown of US economy in 2008, and the bailout done by the gov’t & feds who were run by the ex Goldman Sachs proffesionals. In economy, we are familiar with the term of Real Business Cycle, I guess by learning the trend, the meltdown caused by the malfunctioned financial system. They created more unbelieavable products, leveraged more, and the book keeping is no longer simple yet untransparent. Then, all of a sudden, those institutions who loved to play around the financial toys are becoming too big to regulate and too complex to decipher.
June 6, 2021
FDR is weeping for his country.
It is June 5, 2021 as I write this. This is one more of hundreds of books published since 1971 that prove that a conservative project against democracy has been active since at least the time of Barry Goldwater. The Hippies had their number long ago. Wall Street is always only loyal to Plutocracy. Sad times.
It is June 5, 2021 as I write this. This is one more of hundreds of books published since 1971 that prove that a conservative project against democracy has been active since at least the time of Barry Goldwater. The Hippies had their number long ago. Wall Street is always only loyal to Plutocracy. Sad times.
June 14, 2021
Great book describing in detail everything that happened with the financial crisis and ensuing bailout. Definitely shocking and written in a way most people can understand.
December 29, 2025
Informative book on financial corruption in the USA by big players
January 16, 2018
It Takes a Pillage is a comprehensive overview of the 2008 financial crisis. There was a staggering amount of deregulation, law-breaking, and irresponsibility leading up to the calamity. The author is justifiably incensed at the avaricious, reckless, and criminal actions of the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, & US Government. As of 2010, the crisis has cost America 13.3 trillion in guarantees, loans, and subsidies.
This book is exceptionally written and heavily referenced. At times, it's a deflating read because it's crystal clear America’s future is massively jeopardized. An even more devastating meltdown awaits the nation. Wall Street’s stranglehold over Washington D.C allows it to engage in dangerous (and occasionally illegal) behavior and gobble up smaller firms at America’s expense.
The book can be a little dense at times, but its strengths more than make up for it. Highly recommended.
This book is exceptionally written and heavily referenced. At times, it's a deflating read because it's crystal clear America’s future is massively jeopardized. An even more devastating meltdown awaits the nation. Wall Street’s stranglehold over Washington D.C allows it to engage in dangerous (and occasionally illegal) behavior and gobble up smaller firms at America’s expense.
The book can be a little dense at times, but its strengths more than make up for it. Highly recommended.
May 20, 2012
I've only just started this book, but it's fascinating to see still more about how we've been screwed by Wall Street and the govenment.
pg 3-4
A former partner a Goldman Sachs, once commented that finance is one of the few disciplines ‘based on the creation of absolutely nothing.’ And that’s very true. Finance is based on the principle of continuously pushing nothing for something throughout the system as long as someone else is around to pay for it. Passing the buck comes in the form of extreme profits and bonuses during economic upswings, and it has continued afterward with unprecedented bailouts that began in 2008. I know from experience that most of the people on Wall Street view making money as a game, one that is less (if you can imagine) about colossal paychecks and more about winning - - status, position and power...The rules that govern this competition have much more to do with internal politics than with anything related to the outside world...So what if, in practice, churning trillions of dollars of fabricated securities can take down the whole economy? That thinking comes into play only if it affects pay. Otherwise what goes on inside a Wall Street investment bank on a day-to-day basis simply doesn’t take ordinary people into account.
p 9 - The S.E.C’s bungling of old rules also led to massive gutting of US and world economies
During the housing boom, nearly any type of asset could be used as collateral to concoct securities. From 2002 to 2006, subprime and other risky home loans were the main form of collateral. The restrictions that could have stopped those loans from being used as collateral to create so much systemic debt, which later introduced so much systemic risk, were ripped apart in 2004 through a dangerous S.E.C rules revision.
pg 3-4
A former partner a Goldman Sachs, once commented that finance is one of the few disciplines ‘based on the creation of absolutely nothing.’ And that’s very true. Finance is based on the principle of continuously pushing nothing for something throughout the system as long as someone else is around to pay for it. Passing the buck comes in the form of extreme profits and bonuses during economic upswings, and it has continued afterward with unprecedented bailouts that began in 2008. I know from experience that most of the people on Wall Street view making money as a game, one that is less (if you can imagine) about colossal paychecks and more about winning - - status, position and power...The rules that govern this competition have much more to do with internal politics than with anything related to the outside world...So what if, in practice, churning trillions of dollars of fabricated securities can take down the whole economy? That thinking comes into play only if it affects pay. Otherwise what goes on inside a Wall Street investment bank on a day-to-day basis simply doesn’t take ordinary people into account.
p 9 - The S.E.C’s bungling of old rules also led to massive gutting of US and world economies
During the housing boom, nearly any type of asset could be used as collateral to concoct securities. From 2002 to 2006, subprime and other risky home loans were the main form of collateral. The restrictions that could have stopped those loans from being used as collateral to create so much systemic debt, which later introduced so much systemic risk, were ripped apart in 2004 through a dangerous S.E.C rules revision.
June 9, 2014
This was great. I learned a hell of a lot about what caused the 2008 crash and how the bailouts were run, as well as various financial terms that I hadn't understood before. There's a ton of really good background here. It's one of those books that has left me more knowledgeable, and looking up other books that can fill in the gaps in my knowledge I didn't realize I had before. Pretty much the best thing I can say about any work of non-fiction.
Style-wise, it's pretty good. Prins is knowledgeable, snarky, just a bit sarcastic, explains how things work in simple terms and backs it all up with numbers. I think I did myself a disservice by picking up this one as an audiobook - there are so many numbers that it's hard to get the full impact if you're listening while doing dishes or sending out invoices, whatever. (Although 5 starts for Gabra Zackman's narration, as usual.) I'll be listening to it again, and probably picking up a hard copy so I can reference the numbers.
Reading in 2014, it suffers slightly from having been written in 2009, although only because I was reading it to educate myself. If I was already on top of all this stuff and reading it as pure commentary, I'm sure I would have had a lot more cynical appreciation for Prins' predictions of what would happen over the years between when the book came out and now.
Can't wait to get my hands on "All the President's Bankers."
Style-wise, it's pretty good. Prins is knowledgeable, snarky, just a bit sarcastic, explains how things work in simple terms and backs it all up with numbers. I think I did myself a disservice by picking up this one as an audiobook - there are so many numbers that it's hard to get the full impact if you're listening while doing dishes or sending out invoices, whatever. (Although 5 starts for Gabra Zackman's narration, as usual.) I'll be listening to it again, and probably picking up a hard copy so I can reference the numbers.
Reading in 2014, it suffers slightly from having been written in 2009, although only because I was reading it to educate myself. If I was already on top of all this stuff and reading it as pure commentary, I'm sure I would have had a lot more cynical appreciation for Prins' predictions of what would happen over the years between when the book came out and now.
Can't wait to get my hands on "All the President's Bankers."
July 31, 2012
For a while now I sort of stepped back from the collective outrage at Wall Street. I did not participate in as many Occupy events and sort of had optimism in human nature to pull itself out of the economic crisis. Prins' book laid out the whole before-during and after effects of the economic crash of 2008. Unfortunately her warnings were extremely prescient, her recommendations largely ignored by President Obama, and her observations relevant even in 2012. The same players in Washington and on Wall Street are still in power and in fact enjoying complete immunity from the destruction they've wreaked on the national and global economy. There were points during reading this book that I teared up, thinking about the how the government has sold us out and left the struggling homeowners, the unemployed and all of us that have experience a loss in wealth in the garbage while rewarding the financial industry with record bonuses, immunity from prosecution and bailouts on a massive scale. I still have hope for the country but I know it won't come from the Democrats or Republicans, financial industry or any politician who has decided that profits come before people. I am enraged, enlightened and energized to reclaim our democracy.
April 23, 2012
This is one of the few completely sincere and direct accounts of the true nature of the 2008 bank bailouts. The main point is that TARP was only a tiny piece of the overall size of the bailout dominated by the Fed printing trillions of dollars and giving it to banks all over the world. This book was written in 2009 but the money is still going out even in 2012. It is true that the banks pay most of the money back but there is still over a trillion dollars outstanding much of which was loaned to banks that have since failed and will never pay the money back. And the money that is paid back is an incredible gift to the banks because it allows them to borrow interest-free money from the discount window and then loan it out at something like 3-4%. It is an insane amount of free money and it strengthens the moral hazard allowing them to feel like they can get away with everything. That money also makes them more powerful which reduces the chance of real reform. The fact that the bailouts are still being given out and that the financial reform bill was only symbolic and a joke means that the financial industry seems to have power over both political parties. It has turned out that the Obama Administration has failed to regulate the banks and bring real financial reform.
June 21, 2010
Naomi Prins is a former Goldman Sachs employee who has turned muckraker. Her book explains how trillions were handed out to the big investment banks after the Second Great Banking Crisis. She also details the alphabet soup of funding facilities that were created to move toxic assets off the banks' balance sheets at taxpayers expense. After reading this book you will understand how Wall Street battles against regulation when the profits are rolling in and how the same crony capitalists conspire to extract enormous bailouts when the bubble finally bursts.
June 16, 2012
Another great compilation of the news and under-the-table facts the media never present about the so-called "free and open market" that masquerades as capitalism. Nomi Prins dishes out the facts, the $$$ in the trillions as well as the culture and the extent of the deceptions and machinations the US government (SEC, Treasury and Fed. Reserve) use to empower a "Royal Monetarchy" The handouts haven't stopped. I cite Prins facts and numbers copiously through out my own book "Dioxinomics: The Myth of Superpower in the Age of Dioxin."
May 31, 2010
Prins's analysis doesn't go as deep into the structure of the monopoly capitalist economy as, say, the Baran/Sweezy-inspired analysis of Foster and Magdoff in their recent "The Great Financial Crisis," but she does go into searing detail about the banking industry, resulting in a solidly well-informed populist tract.
December 29, 2010
Brilliant, well-researched and well-documented (though also enraging) account of the so-called "bailouts" of financial/political elites who used a corrupt system to steal from the nations citizens and the need for systems overhauls (NOT a hope to just "get the system back on its feet again) to avoid continuous repeats.
March 10, 2010
I never got through this book when I bought it as it was so horrifying and outrageous - but Rick read it through and thought it informative so I am starting again - sure i will be angry when done at what these financiers have gotten away with
Want to Read
April 23, 2011Looks good. This is one of the many books that documents the general avarice and stupidity of the
financial sector. We must educate ourselves because it appears that very little is being done to insure that a financial disaster doesn't happen again.
financial sector. We must educate ourselves because it appears that very little is being done to insure that a financial disaster doesn't happen again.
February 27, 2012
Heard all the arguments before. A bit to preachy. Ultra liberal in arguments. An okay book.
November 8, 2014
Lot's of information, way too much editorializing. At time, just sounds like a personal rant.
November 24, 2015
15b08_#### kpfk marmoudian An Edible History of Humanity, Tom Standage; South China Sea dispute.MP3
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