E-Book Overview
In the wake of the financial meltdown in 2008, many claimed that it had been inevitable, that no one saw it coming, and that subprime borrowers were to blame. This accessible, thoroughly researched book is Jennifer Taub's response to such unfounded claims. Drawing on wide-ranging experience as a corporate lawyer, investment firm counsel, and scholar of business law and financial market regulation, Taub chronicles how government officials helped bankers inflate the toxic-mortgage-backed housing bubble, then after the bubble burst ignored the plight of millions of homeowners suddenly facing foreclosure. Focusing new light on the similarities between the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s and the financial crisis in 2008, Taub reveals that in both cases the same reckless banks, operating under different names, failed again, while the same lax regulators overlooked fraud and abuse. Furthermore, in 2014, as the legal problems plaguing JPMorgan Chase demonstrate, the situation is essentially unchanged. The author asserts that the 2008 crisis was not just similar to the S&L scandal, it was a severe relapse of the same underlying disease. And despite modest regulatory reforms, the disease remains uncured: top banks remain too big to manage, too big to regulate, too big to prosecute, and too big to fail.
E-Book Information
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Year: 2,014
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City: United States
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Pages: 406
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Language: English
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Identifier: 0300168985,978-0-300-16898-3,38-2014-332-7
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Doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2316832
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Org File Size: 3,703,694
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Extension: epub
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Tags:
Savings and Loan Bailout, 1989-1995. Savings and loan association failures -- Economic aspects -- United States. Mortgage loans -- United States. Banks and banking -- United States -- History. Financial crises -- United States -- History.
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Toc: Content: Highfliers. The nobelmans -- The condo king and his empire -- The run on American Savings and Loan -- The Saturday night massacre -- Deregulation inauguration -- The red baron of finance -- The bailout -- Friends of the court -- Repeat performance. Friend of the family -- The factory line -- The bubble -- First to fall -- Surf and turf -- Legal enablers of the toxic chain -- The great betrayal -- Myth confronts reality. Dispelling myths about the crisis.