The Sellout: How Three Decades of Wall Street Greed and Government Mismanagement Destroyed the Global Financial System

Charles Gasparino

Harper Collins, Oct 19, 2010 - Business & Economics - 592 pages

The ongoing tumult in financial markets and the global economy began when some of our most esteemed financial institutions, our government, and even average citizens abdicated their collective responsibilities, eventually selling out investors and selling off the American Dream itself.

From critically acclaimed investigative journalist and CNBC personality Charles Gasparino comes a sweeping examination of the most volatile, anxiety-ridden era in our nation's socioeconomic history. The winner of the 2009 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award for Books, The Sellout traces the recent implosion of the financial services business back to its roots in the late 1970s, when Wall Street embraced a new business model predicated on enormous risk. Gasparino reveals a startling trail of culpability—from the government bureaucrats who crafted housing policies to the Wall Street firms that underwrote and invested in risky debt, to the mortgage sellers who indiscriminately handed out loans, and finally to the homeowners who thought they could afford mansions on blue-collar wages.

Contents

• Prologue: 1
• LETS MAKE MONEY: 7
• Fun and Games: 9
• Power and Perks: 38
• Sex Drugs and Debt: 53
• An Education in Risk: 65
• MERCHANTS OF DEBT: 85
• Bigger Is Better: 87
• Financial Renaissance: 103
• Paying the Price: 120
• One Big Happy Family: 130
• Opening the Floodgates: 151
• No More Mother Merrill: 164
• The Money Machine: 181
• Perverse Incentives: 196
• Top of the World: 206
• Cash Stops Flowing: 226
• WHATS THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?: 243
• The Dancing Stops: 289
• The End Begins: 330
• There Are Rumors That You Guys Are in Trouble: 392
• Free Fall: 411
• The Rescue: 441
• Bailout Nation: 463
• Epilogue: 479
• Afterword: 501
• Acknowledgments: 511
• Index: 535

About the author

Charles Gasparino is a senior correspondent for Fox Business Network, a columnist for the Daily Beast and the New York Post, and a freelance writer for Forbes and other publications. Previously, he was the on-air editor for CNBC and wrote for Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Blood on the Street, which was listed by Barron's as one of the Best Business Books of 2005, and King of the Club, which Library Journal named one of the Best Business Books of 2007.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Sellout: How Three Decades of Wall Street Greed and Government Mismanagement Destroyed the Global Financial System
• Author: Charles Gasparino
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Harper Collins, 2010
• ISBN: 0061697176, 9780061697173
• Length: 592 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / General