Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America [Hardcover]

Charles H. Ferguson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 22, 2012

Charles H. Ferguson, who electrified the world with his Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, now explains how a predator elite took over the country, step by step, and he exposes the networks of academic, financial, and political influence, in all recent administrations, that prepared the predators’ path to conquest. 
     Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history. 

·         Finance has become America’s dominant industry, while manufacturing, even for high technology industries, has nearly disappeared.

·         The financial sector has become increasingly criminalized, with the widespread fraud that caused the housing bubble going completely unpunished.

·         Federal tax collections as a share of GDP are at their lowest level in sixty years, with the wealthy and highly profitable corporations enjoying the greatest tax reductions.

·         Most shockingly, the United States, so long the beacon of opportunity for the ambitious poor, has become one of the world’s most unequal and unfair societies. 

If you’re smart and a hard worker, but your parents aren’t rich, you’re now better off being born in Munich, Germany or in Singapore than in Cleveland, Ohio or New York.
This radical shift did not happen by accident. 

     Ferguson shows how, since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, both major political parties have become captives of the moneyed elite.  It was the Clinton administration that dismantled the regulatory controls that protected the average citizen from avaricious financiers.  It was the Bush team that destroyed the federal revenue base with its grotesquely skewed tax cuts for the rich. And it is the Obama White House that has allowed financial criminals to continue to operate unchecked, even after supposed “reforms” installed after the collapse of 2008.

     Predator Nation reveals how once-revered figures like Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers became mere courtiers to the elite.  Based on many newly released court filings, it details the extent of the crimes—there is no other word—committed in the frenzied chase for wealth that caused the financial crisis.  And, finally, it lays out a plan of action for how we might take back our country and the American dream.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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Guest Reviewer: Simon Johnson on Predator Nation by Charles H. Ferguson
Simon Johnson is coauthor of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown and White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters To You.

Predator Nation demolishes the view that the global financial crisis was merely some sort of freak accident. Charles Ferguson makes a convincing case that the world’s banking system was brought to the brink of complete collapse in 2008–09 by a virulent combination of unchecked greed and criminal behavior.

This is an epic crime story with an apparently clean getaway, courtesy of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Both presidents proved unwilling to hold anyone to account—or even to launch meaningful investigations.

Leading bankers walked away with billions of dollars in unjustified compensation. The costs imposed on the rest of us can be measured in the trillions of dollars.

Predator Nation provides a roadmap for prosecution, systematically covering the banks involved, the names of culpable executives, the obvious crimes, the precise laws broken, and the evidence hiding in plain sight. No doubt it will be widely ignored by our legal officials.

Ferguson’s points are also intensely political. Reckless behavior by bankers can be traced back to the bipartisan consensus around deregulating finance in recent decades. This result is a socially destructive industry with immense political power—and capable of defeating all attempts at meaningful reform. The continued predominance of rogue finance is greatly facilitated by its effective corruption of American academia and many so-called “independent experts” (documented in Charles Ferguson’s Oscar-winning movie, Inside Job.)

Big banks hold American politics in a death grip. To understand this—and to start to think about how to break this grip—read Predator Nation and give a copy to everyone you know.

Review

Praise for Predator Nation

"A tightly argued, profusely footnoted and deeply enraged castigation of everyone involved, Predator Nation isn’t just a factually unchallengeable account of how Wall Street blew up the global economy. It’s a denunciation, a call for justice and a warning."—Salon

“With Predator Nation, Charles Ferguson sets out to finish what he started with his Oscar-winning documentary, Inside Job. This take-no-prisoners account of the financial crisis follows the money, connects the dots, names names, and asks the questions our leaders still refuse to answer: how have those responsible for the crisis not been held accountable, and how can we make sure it doesn’t happen again?” —Arianna Huffington, president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group
 
“There is fraud at the heart of Wall Street—deliberate intellectual, business, and political deception. Charles Ferguson is in hot pursuit. Inside Job shook up the cozy world of academic finance. Predator Nation should stir prosecutors into action. And if we fail to reform our political system, you can say goodbye to American democracy.” —Simon Johnson, coauthor of White House Burning and professor at MIT Sloan School of Management
 
“Ferguson presents a fierce indictment of predatory activities of parts of the financial system and of the corruption of democracy that ‘big money’ financial lobbying has caused. A book well worth reading regardless of whether you fully agree or not with all of its arguments.” —Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics and international business at Stern School of Business, New York University, and chairman of Roubini Global Economics
 
“The definitive financial crisis book has now been written. With an encyclopedic factual foundation to support his arguments, the ever-brilliant Charles Ferguson has given us Inside Job on steroids. The collusion between Wall Street and Washington that brought our economy to its knees is set out in a way that will have steam coming out of your ears in fury.” —Eliot Spitzer

“A deeply argued call to action from a lucid, impassioned polemicist.”—Kirkus (starred review)

“Charles Ferguson's Predator Nation is nothing less than a devastating narrative portrait of the many times Wall Street has made Main Street and others the victims of its predatory schemes. In his inimitable clear-headed style, Ferguson correctly asks, why do they keep getting away with it? Why indeed.”—William D. Cohan, author of House of Cards and Money and Power

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; First Edition edition (May 22, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030795255X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307952554
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #139,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

134 of 144 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Bad news, right down the line/ (A quiz makes it less gloomy) May 30, 2012

By Jesse Kornbluth TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

The last time we saw Charles Ferguson, he was beginning his remarks on the occasion of his Academy Award for "Inside Job" with these blunt words: "Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong."

Now he's back with a book that --- big surprise --- documents the atrocities.

But that's the least of it.

The larger argument of "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America" is that "over the last thirty years the U.S. financial sector has become a rogue industry... Since the 1990s, its power has been sufficient to insulate bankers not only from effective regulation but even from criminal law enforcement. The financial sector is now a parasitic and destabilizing industry that constitutes a major drag on American economic growth....So one reason for writing this book is to lay out in painfully clear detail the case for criminal prosecutions."

Ferguson is far from the only writer to feel this way. I can name a dozen others --- but they are all bloggers. Ferguson, in contrast, sold a company for $100 million. Won an Academy Award. And --- this is telling --- he thinks Obama is just as much the bitch of Wall Street as Bush was. As Clinton was. As Reagan was.

Let's be clear: This is not a political book, not an election year screed teed up to help either candidate. It's a horror story: how you and I became second-class citizens in our own country, how most Americans have no idea how this happened, how very unlikely we can do much about it before Wall Street's stranglehold on Washington solidifies the dominance of an elite whose only allegiance is to its own money.

Few of us have followed this story closely. We can't. We're too busy surviving. We have, at best, a general idea of the plot: In the saga of boom and bust on Wall Street, the only people who were busted were individual investors.

So let me not bang on. Let me, instead present some of Ferguson's case in the form of a quiz. Answers at bottom. (Try not to cheat. On the other hand, considering the subject...)

1) From 2000 to the financial meltdown of 2008, what percentage of mortgages were used to finance purchases of the buyer's first home?

2) Between 2000 and 2006, how much did prices of U.S. homes increase?

3) Some believe that the subprime bubble was caused by deadbeats who scammed their way into mortgages. What percentage of people who gave fraudulent data to get subprime loans during these years had help from mortgage brokers?

4) By 2005 what percentage of all American GDP growth was housing-related?

5) In 2004 the SEC voted unanimously to a) limit leverage at investment banks to 20% b) limit leverage to 50% or c) let investment banks calculate their own leverage limits.

6) In the third quarter of 2007, when Merrill Lynch was falling apart, how often did its CEO, Stan O'Neal, play golf? a) not at all. b) once. c) 20 times.

7) Ferguson writes: "The President and senior administration officials have portrayed themselves as frustrated and hamstrung --- desirous of punishing those responsible for the crisis but unable to do so because their conduct wasn't illegal, and/or the federal government lacks sufficient power to sanction them." Ferguson finds this view a) "sad but true" b) proof that "Wall Street rules" or c) "complete horses--t."

8) In the past decade, how much has the financial services industry given to American politicians? a) $500 million b) $1 billion c) $5 billion.

9) How does the U.S. rank in broadband deployment? a) first b) twentieth c) fiftieth.

10) What does the American telecommunications industry spend more on? a) lobbying b) research & development.

11) In 2009, Britain enacted a tax on banking bonuses. At what rate? a) 15% b) 25% c) 50%.

Now look at your answers. Depressing, yes?

Okay, who's to blame? For Ferguson, the answer is: neither political party. Or, rather, both.

But there are huge differences between our political parties these days, you say.

Yes, says Ferguson, on social issues. But on economic issues --- which is what people with money seem to care about a lot more than gay marriage --- the parties are, he argues, in complete agreement:

"Both political parties have been remarkably clever and effective in concealing this new reality. In fact, the two parties have formed an innovative kind of cartel --- an arrangement I have termed America's political duopoly. Both parties lie about the fact that they have each sold out to the financial sector and the wealthy. So far both have largely gotten away with the lie, helped in part by the enormous amount of money now spent on deceptive, manipulative political advertising."

The result: an economic elite, lawless and arrogant. A bought-and-paid-for government. And a growing underclass: "There are now tens of millions of Americans whose condition is little better than many people in poor third-world nations."

It is obligatory that books with information this dark show a flash of light at the end. Ferguson does this too: "Americans are getting angry, and even when they're misguided or poorly informed, people have a deep, visceral sense that they're being screwed."

Fine. We're getting screwed and we know it. So what?

Now, Ferguson says, we try to save our democracy. We invest in education. We "bring the financial sector under control." We limit the impact of money on elections. We reform the tax system. We consider broadband as "infrastructure" and build it out.

Show of hands: How many think this can happen?

ANSWERS

1) Fewer than 10%. Many more mortgages were taken out to buy a second home, refinance a prior mortgage or extract equity out of a home.

2) According to the U.S. National Home Price Index, home prices doubled --- the largest, fastest increase in history.

3) 80%.

4) 50%.

5) c) The banks could set their own limits.

6). c) He played golf 20 times.

7. c) "complete horses--t."

8) c) $5 billion.

9) b) twentieth.

10) a) lobbying.

11) c) 50%.

69 of 75 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Captures a Non-discussible May 24, 2012

By Walter J. Meldrich, Jr.

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book has a little discussed aspect that is very important. The author is not afraid to bring into focus that most of our institutions have been taken over by the criminal class. This is a cultural issue that is not addressed by most other books on the great recession. I believe it is a very big deal to finally discuss the fact that today's business leaders are being paid massive, obscene salaries to game the system through criminal behavior instead of trying to compete on a level playing field. It is also useful in that it discusses how deep the infiltration is, in that it includes academia. Our business schools are becoming as corrupt as the CEO's. Be prepared for some shocking findings in this book and have the antacids ready.

53 of 57 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read May 27, 2012

By Jeremy

Format:Hardcover

I have read many of the recently published books on the financial crises over the past few years in an effort to better understand what happened. This book is by far the best that I have read to date. It details not only what happened and how the crisis was created but also who was behind it and how they benefited. The most interesting chapters discuss the many laws that were broken by the large financial institutions and complete absence of prosecution by any law enforcement agency in the US.