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

The book itself is a fantastic example of very thorough investigative journalism. The writers obviously spent years doing massive amounts of research and interviews. It reads very well and presents a cast of characters as they truly are. It is written for the layman and casual reader. Once you put it down you will be extraordinarily disheartened at how the S & L crisis came about. The book sheds light on the roots and origins - the push for industry deregulation in the '80s and its massive, and quite apparently not well thought through, embrace by legislators. But it does a fair and balanced portrayal of the actors - highlighting that the worst people were already professional con artists and had links to organized crime. What is truly disheartening is the massive participation by and interference by top level career politicians (a handful of whom are still around)- many of whom were found by their peers to have severely violated ethics standards. It does a good job of portraying why regulation and oversight of certain industries - particularly the financial services industry, is so difficult. The rulemakers (legislators) are often severely conflicted because they are so heavily funded by the industry - most people don't like taking shots at their meal ticket. Some legislators, as detailed here, won't even hesitate to attack regulators when they threaten their lobbyist/campaign lifeline - rather than protect their citizens overall. This is a very good read in light of current events with the mortgage lending crisis. One will find creepy, even shocking similarities. The bottom line is the same - poorly written loans (given to an elite group in the S & L case) with no real, credible basis for believing they would be repaid - shoddy underwriting, shoddy controls, shoddy monitoring, weak regulation/deregulation/regulation with no teeth [which is always exploited by those opportunistic few who quite literally make a living as con artists (criminals)], massive interference by the rich and connected. The best, and saddest part, is this book is real - the events really happened, the facts are portrayed very objectively (the writers did an extraordinary job with research and documenting sources of information), the people involved were people well known and are still around in some circles, the costs and consequences are real and still being paid for to this day. Reading this book in light of current events will make one pause...pause and worry.

I give this 4.5 stars out of 5 - very well done. The most accessible, well-documented history of the S & L crisis caused by Reagan in the 80's. Even though the topic is dated, the book provides a good subject for students of history, and also an eye-opener for people interested in the irresponsible (and costly) fiscal policies of the neo-con right wing. In the first few pages, this book summarizes a problem (a scam, actually) perpetuated on the American taxpayers by a small handful of ultra-wealthy elitists. In just a few minutes, you will have a firm grasp on how the scam works, and the long term effects on the US economy - something even the press never really understood and failed to adequately convey to the public. The author uses metaphors and plain language, and even though it is dense, the book is easy to read. Besides being a good overview, what I found most interesting was the secion on Neil Bush and his insurance fraud scams (over 100 of them), and how George H Bush was able to pardon him before the public or press got full wind of his embezzlement. Subsequently, I read the book "Silverado: Neil Bush and the Savings & Loan Scandal" - which was also very good, but franky, I thought that the short section on Bush in the Inside Job did more than an adequate job of covering all the facts. Except for the historian, economist, or political scientist, this book is probably too much detail for the average reader. For those of you who want the quick & dirty fact, I suggest reading about it online (Wikipedia), or getting the the abridged version of this book, or listening to the abridged audio book. But the length of the book does not detract from my positive rating - very well done.

I highly recommend this to those of us who were not adults at the time: in the 80's, I was still a kid - I couldn't be bothered to know what was happening in the world of S & Ls. Little did I know, but those high-flyers would affect my taxes for years (and years and years). The book is easy to read - not too technical. It was a bit repetitive at times, but I think that's because many of the S & L crooks used the same types of illegal ponzi schemes to move money from one pocket to the other. If you're like me, and knew very little about the S & L debacle, then let this book educate you. It's a telling tale of the problems brought-about by rampant de-regulation. I never knew that the S & L scandal(s) involved the wholesale looting of these banks (and American taxpayers - since they were federally protected deposits). If you're already well-versed in the subject, you can read this to get some of the more personal stories of theft and graft. There were also stories of corrupt politicians. I know it's a shock, but to me there's nothing more disgusting than a public trustee bending the rules to their advantage: they work for us.

A must read - will leave you speechless and much wiser.

This is a tragic story of the looting of hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers money, money that could've gone for needed social services or other things. The government let it happen and this book tells you how.