3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Corruption, Greed, Power & Presidential ties!!!, October 6, 2005
This review is from: Silverado: Neil Bush and the Savings & Loan Scandal (Hardcover)
This book was great!!! The author told a very thorough story about how individuals as well as respected professions contributed to the Silverado S & L / Real Estate scandal from Michael Wise, Neil Bush (& subsequently his father's political weight), Kermit Mowbray, Coopers & Lybrand, Bill Walters, former commodities trader Kenneth Good, to Larry Mizel of MDC Homes and the countless politicians he & his company's subcontractors funded to pave the way for one of the most notorious financial scandals produced from the great Republican deregulation era. Conversely, the real estate appraisal industry picked up a regulatory big brother, but they weren't alone in 3rd party contributory damage...let's not forget the consultants, accountants, and Federal regulators...and have I mentioned 'countless politicians...elephants as well as asses?'
This story isn't about Neil Bush bashing, although it easily could've been considering how naive the author thinks of him. Perhaps Neil really is that simple or maybe the Bush men just make great puppets!(Wise, the Saudis, Rove ;-)...Regardless who was behind the Wizard's curtain when the Feds were instructed to wait until after daddy Bush's election...Neil rode his family name to gain social access, financial favors, and eventually, a protective shield.
Exercise your own judgment...its an easy read, very entertaining & well worth the change plus shipping & handling :-)
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mostly about conflicts of interest, January 13, 2004
This review is from: Silverado: Neil Bush and the Savings & Loan Scandal (Hardcover)
The author of this book, Steven Wilmsen, was a financial reporter for the `Denver Business Journal' prior to reporting for the Denver Post in 1989. The copy I have of SILVERADO (1991), was published when the father of Neil Bush was President of the United States. Whether anything further has come to light, I can't say, and this book did not know why Colorado's plan to close Silverado at the end of October, 1988, during the presidential election campaign, was delayed by a mystery phone call that resulted in fantastic losses before the official closing date of December 8 or 9, 1988. "On October 21, the Colorado savings and loan commissioner called Mowbray in Topeka and said he would close the thrift before the end of the month. Mowbray, suddenly and unexpectedly, ordered the proceedings to a halt. A call had come from Washington asking Mowbray to hold off closing Silverado for forty-five days." (p. 183).
I do not see any logic for assuming that the bank had hundreds of millions of dollars more in September than in December of 1988, but this book says:
"The cost of that delay is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In late September, regulators estimated the cost of Silverado's closure to be between $400 million and $600 million. When the thrift was finally closed December 9, it cost $1 billion." (p. 184).
If anything irks me about this book, it is the journalistic sensationalism. I like to look at the pictures (pp. 97-112) to see who the book captures and how young they looked in the 1980s. In the first nine months of 1990, Neil Bush even allowed the author to have six interviews (p. 7), trying to convince the public, "Silverado was no different than any other well-respected savings and loan, and I acted in prudence in all matters, just like any other respected director would in my position." (p. 12). That shouldn't surprise anyone who knows more about the role of money in politics than they know about the role of mathematics in financial transactions, but this book itself is not much higher up the intellectual food chain. There is so little information that I will provide summary topics for each chapter:
Chapter 1: Denver
Chapter 2: Michael Wise, the hypnotic new (in 1979) president of Mile High Savings. "Wise paid himself millions, but he never amassed the ridiculous icons of wealth that became hallmarks of some thrift executives' careers." (p. 28).
Chapter 3: "The measly 5.5 percent savings and loans paid for deposits at the time was a joke. No one in his or her right mind would keep money in a savings account that paid so little . . ." (p. 39). "Mile High was healthy in 1972, when interest rates were relatively stable. That year, the nation's thrifts had a collective worth of $16.7 billion. By 1980, that figure had crashed to a negative $17.5 billion. Mile High, accordingly, was practically broke." (p. 40). "The thrift doubled again the next year." (p. 44). "Propelled by the commissions they got each time a big block of money moved, the brokers had pulled in 20 percent of Silverado's total deposit base by 1985." (p. 51).
Chapter 4: "Neil came into the world on a wintry Texas day, January 22, 1955, the third son . . ." (p. 60).
Chapter 5: "As any number of late-night TV seminars will tell you, the secret to making a lot of money in the real estate business is not to use your own cash." (p. 73). "So, under the approving eye of the Reagan administration, lawmakers passed the Economic Recovery Tax Act, another way of saying Big Tax Break." (p. 74). "An investor could buy a share of a real estate project for $100,000 and get $200,000 in tax breaks." (p. 75).
Chapter 6: "With Neil on the board, that's what Wise got. In January 1986, just four months after Neil joined, vice chairman Vandapool wrote a memo to Wise (the same memo in which he praised Wise for transforming Silverado from a mess to a miracle). `Let's admit it,' he wrote, `The Board is a legal necessity, but you and Jim (majority stockholder W. James Metz) control the company and you control the directors.'" (pp. 90-91).
Chapter 7: "By 1988, M.D.C., Silverado and Walters had donated nearly $1 million to candidates for governor, mayor, county commissioner and a spate of other local seats. Thousands more went to national campaigns for Congress and the presidency." (p. 134).
Chapter 8: "They believed Silverado was in bad shape, but they apparently didn't have any idea of the task on which they were about to embark." (pp. 152-153). "There was no question: The thrift was hemorrhaging, and it had to be stopped." (p. 153).
Chapter 9: "A pig is a powerful and feared beast in the trade that symbolizes an audit out of control, paralyzed by confusion." (p. 162). "Silverado's managers was furious. How dare these pencil necks tell them how to run their business." (p. 168). "The Silverado account was the pig of pigs." (p. 172). "That such a frenzy of greed and irresponsibility should have occurred, of all places, in the accounting profession is mind-boggling." (p. 173).
Chapter 10: "On June 8, 1988, the inevitable happened. The Fort Worth real estate developer missed a $3 million dollar payment on a loan . . . According to the insane terms of the original agreement, Silverado was liable for the payment, and the developer wouldn't be paying Silverado for its $74 million loan." (p. 177). "But it was clear that the thrift wasn't long for the world when on August 15 the Colorado savings and loan commissioner issued a capital call, the first step in a government takeover. Two days later, suddenly sensitive to the appearance of conflicts of interest, Neil Bush announced his resignation from the board." (p. 181).
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