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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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The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

By: William K. Black
Narrated by: Scotty Drake
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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.

©2005, 2013 University of Texas Press (P)2014 Redwood Audiobooks Banks & Banking Economic History Economics Political Science Politics & Government Banking Business Taxation
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This is a must-read landmark book about a landmark scandal whose reverberations still ring around US the securities industry.

It is unashamedly a regulator's-eye view, focussed on standing up to and rooting out control frauds, so rather skips over how these "control frauds" got going or came about in the first place, which is a pity. Non-American readers might find it assumes a bit too much knowledge therefore.

There's a section at the end with red flags and lessons (not) learned which is particularly valuable.

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