The best way to rob a bank is to own one : how corporate executives and politicians looted the S&L industry / William K. Black.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Black, William K.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Savings and loan associations--Corrupt practices--United States.

Savings and loan associations.

Savings and loan association failures--United States.

Savings and loan association failures.

Savings and Loan Bailout, 1989-1995.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (384 p.)

Edition:

Updated edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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 uses the latest advances in criminology and economics to develop a theory of why “control fraud”—looting a company for personal profit—tends to occur in waves that make financial markets deeply inefficient. He also explains how to prevent such waves. Throughout the book, 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.

Contents:

""Abbreviations""; ""Preface""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""1. Theft by Deception: Control Fraud in the S&L Industry""; ""2. "Competition in Laxity"""; ""3. The Most Unlikely of Heroes""; ""4. Keating's Unholy War against the Bank Board""; ""5. The Texas Control Frauds Enlist Jim Wright""; ""6. "The Faustian Bargain" 1987: FSLIC Recap and the Beginning of the End for Speaker Wright""; ""7. The Miracles, the Massacre, and the Speaker's Fall""; ""8. M. Danny Wall: "Child of the Senate"""; ""9. Final Surrender: Wall Takes Up Neville Chamberlain's Umbrella""

""10. It's the Things You Do Know, But Aren't So, That Cause Disasters""""Afterword""; ""Appendix A: Keating's Plan of Attack on Gray and Reregulation""; ""Appendix B: Hamstringing the Regulator""; ""Appendix C: Get Black. . . Kill Him Dead""; ""Notes""; ""Names and Terms""; ""References""; ""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed December 11, 2013).

ISBN:

9780292754201

0292754205

9780292754195

0292754191

OCLC:

865577815