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Nomi Prins

It Takes a Pillage: An Epic Tale of Power, Deceit, and Untold Trillions Paperback – December 7, 2010

by Nomi Prins (Author)

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A former Wall Street manager turned muckraking journalist gets inside how the banks looted the Treasury, stole the bailout, and continued with business as usual

We all watched as packs of former Big Financiers commandeered posts in Washington and lavished trillions in bailouts to "save" big Wall Street firms that used that money for anything and everything except to fill in Main Street's potholes. We all watched as Wall Street heavyweights fought tooth and nail to declaw financial reform and won.

Former Wall Streeter Nomi Prins has been watching, too, and she is not going to let them get away with it. More than just an angry populist, commentator stuck on the sidelines, Prins understand Big Finance and big money and big schemes-and in this book she exposes the fundamental follies of our economic system and the schemes of the bigwigs who have no intention of letting it change.

Remarkably combines detail, clarity, and narrative momentum, revealing all the ways in banks gamed the system to get the most money with the least oversight.
Exposes the power-bankers who bagged more than $5 billion in compensation before and after their companies grabbed more than a trillion dollars in federal bailout subsidies-and how the government's indignation at this didn't lead to change.
Shows how the most egregious pillagers work at the Fed and Treasury department, detailing how Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Tim Geithner siphoned off $10.7 trillion from the public's future for Big Finance's present, all the while telling us it was for our own good.
Slams a financial system that will not change, if our government doesn't force it to change, no matter what happens in the so-called free market and why the 'sweeping' financial reform bill passed after Wall Street reconsolidated its power, is anything but sweeping or reformative.
Written by a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, now a senior fellow at Demos, who writes regularly on corruption in Washington and Wall Street for news outlets ranging from Fortune to Mother Jones.

If you're still enraged and frustrated with how the bank bailout went bust for the American people, or how Wall Street continues to operate as if the rest of the world doesn't matter, or how the banks are once again rolling in outsized profits and obscene bonuses while average Americans continue to struggle through a bleak landscape of foreclosures and job loss, It Takes a Pillage gives voice to your outrage, and provides a deeper insight into what we really have to be angry about and how we can fight for some real change.

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Wiley
Publication date

December 7, 2010
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.84 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0470928557
ISBN-13

978-0470928554
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Nomi knows. Having been at Goldman Sachs, Nomi Prins knows the mind-set, knows how to read spreadsheets, knows the people, and knows Wall Street's games. Nomi knows and now Nomi tells."
—Jim Hightower, author of Swim against the Current

"If you want to understand why Wall Street is disgraced but still calling the shots, you can't do better than the brilliantly written and documented It Takes a Pillage."
—Robert Kuttner, author of Obama's Challenge

After months of various drafts and political infighting, Congress finally passed, and President Obama signed into law, a bill that was supposedly the biggest financial reform bill in decades. The big question is, do the supporters of this bill really believe it will change Wall Street? Or do they simply hope it'll be enough to placate us so the status quo can be validated? Nomi Prins assumes the latter, because they can't be that naive, but time will tell.

In It Takes a Pillage, former Wall Street insider turned muckraking journalist Nomi Prins explains how we are building a new bubble with more leverage, bigger bonuses, rampant speculation and fraud, amid extended unemployment and personal financial decline. The cowering of Washington bureaucrats in the face of the power and influence exerted by the Big Banks threatens the immediate economic well-being of us all.

The scariest part is that, for all the trillions that have been spent or remain committed to the bloated stalwarts of Wall Street, our economic system is still in disarray. Average Americans continue to struggle while the banks are once again rolling in outsized profits and obscene bonuses. It Takes a Pillage is packed with the information you need to understand the financial crisis and what has followed, and to gain deeper insight into how to fight for real change.

About the Author

NOMI PRINS is a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, now a senior fellow at Demos, who writes on corruption in Washington and on Wall Street for Fortune, Mother Jones, AlterNet, the New York Times, the Daily Beast, and other publications. She is a frequent guest on national radio and television, including NPR, The NewsHour, and various CNBC, CNN, and Fox TV programs. Her previous books are Other People's Money and Jacked. Visit her Web site at www.nomiprins.com

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley; 1st edition (December 7, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0470928557
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0470928554
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.84 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,758,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,807 in Political Economy
- #9,715 in Economic History (Books)
- #10,766 in Economic Conditions (Books)

Customer Reviews:
96 ratings

About the author

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Nomi Prins
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Nomi Prins is a renowned author, journalist and speaker. Her new book, Collusion:How Central Bankers Rigged the World. Her last book, All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, was published on April 8, 2014. Her prior book, Black Tuesday, was a historical novel about the 1929 crash. Before that, she wrote the hard-hitting, It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street. She is also the author of Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, which predicted the recent financial crisis, and was chosen as a Best Book of 2004 by The Economist, Barron's and The Library Journal, and Jacked: How "Conservatives" are Picking your Pocket (whether you voted for them or not.) She wrote the financial thriller, The Trail, under pseudonym, Natalia Prentice.
Before becoming an author, Nomi was a managing director at Goldman Sachs and a senior managing director at Bear Stearns. She has been a featured commentator on numerous TV programs including for: BBC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, CSPAN, Democracy Now, Fox and PBS. She has been featured on hundreds of radio shows including for CNNRadio, Marketplace, NPR, BBC, and Canadian Programming. She has been featured in international documentaries from the US, Norway, France, Germany and other places, alongside other prominent thought-leaders.
Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Fortune, Newsday, Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Slate, The Guardian, The Nation, LaVanguardia, and other publications.
Her website is http://www.nomiprins.com
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4 star		16%
3 star		5%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Marcanthony Salvatini

5 Star Book on all accounts; on Wall St., you could give it 6 Stars!!

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2016

Verified Purchase

While it is a bit dated, the information is as relevant today as it was then. The level of deceit and corruption in our banking and political system is beyond comprehension and Prins nails it. Incredibly researched, factual to back up the story line. Fast forward to day and the goings on with Fed and Wall St, and the "bail in's" and "cashless" meme, given this level of fact and detail, gets one to understand we were, are and will be in more trouble very soon.
Well written; not your average business/investment book. Makes the subject matter and storyline interesting and exciting even though you know the ending. How we got there is a story never told until Prins tackled this complex issue.
While movies like the Big Short are entertaining while giving you a glimpse into the Casino of Wall St, Prins rips the doors off the whole charade we all are paying and will pay more to be part of this cycle of corruption and egocentric politicians and bankers.
She's an excellent investigator and writer with great financial acumen. I bought her other works based on this reading. 5Stars...on Wall St, I'd give it Six:-)

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

A must read to understand the 2008 financial crisis

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2017

Verified Purchase

This book is a must read to anyone who wants to try understand the 2008 financial crisis. It has 226 pages with 9 chapters plus 54 pages of footnotes.This is a scholarly work by someone who worked on Wall Street and saw the crisis unfold.
I have three warnings to potential readers:
1) Prepare to be outraged about the corruption in government and the banking industry.
2) Get ready to search for ways to preserve your hard earned assets that does not rely on the US govt or US dollars.
3) Question whether the trillions of bank-bailout dollars are still sloshing around the world corrupting public institutions.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Will MacPheat

Must Read for all citizens

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2018

Verified Purchase

This book, along with The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klien) and Capitalism in the Twenty-first Century (Piketty) do more to tell you how the average person is being ripped off in this country by the rich and Powerful. We need real change in this country and neither political party is presenting us with that. I think that if you want to be a truly informed voter you need to understand the mechanisms at work in our economy and these three books explain it more completely than any combination of information I can think of.

3 people found this helpful

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Baraniecki Mark Stuart

Insider View of the Debt Crisis

Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2011

Verified Purchase

Nomi Prins appears to be an activist of the Naomi Klein type but her book "It Takes a Pillage" is far more rewarding than Klein's "No Logo".

Whereas Klein fashionably follows her political line (e.g. in ignoring the fact that Chinese manufacturing has lifted 400 million+ Chinese out of poverty), Prins approaches the subject of Wall Street involvement in the credit crisis in a much more open minded way. Perhaps she is rather light on what the consequences would have been of a non-bailout, or the extent to which property speculators stoked the demand for credit, but she explains very clearly the way in which middle America was robbed (indebted) by a group of Wall Street - Washington insiders.

In admirably researched detail she shows how Wall Street found a way to make enormous profits in the first years of the new millennium by misusing free market liberal arguments to demolish the legal barrier separating commercial and investment banking (Glass Steagall Act 1933) and in 2004 gain SEC approval for an official increase in leverage from 12:1 to 30:1. The way was open for the placing of massive bets on an extended capital base linked to sub-prime mortgages with a new government guarantee should anything go wrong.

Of course it did go wrong as sub-prime mortgages defaulted and the leverage went into reverse with the nasty twist that the repeal of Glass Steagall had produced banks that were "too big to fail" and which enjoyed newly extended guarantees.

I feel that Prins (ex Goldman Sachs managing director) is one of the few people that really understand the extent of the damage. The media certainly doesn't as they continue to talk about the TARP and its possible repayment as the end of the crisis. She shows the real facts to be that the government provided $13 trillion in federal bailouts and loans of which TARP was only $700 billion (5%) with full system wide hidden losses possibly in the region of $140 trillion.

The book finishes with a valuable section entitled "Some Solutions" that puts forward structural legal protections to society along the lines of a modernized Glass Steagall Act and a requirement that all debt be quantifiable and in clear view (no more off-book debt) with government guarantees only applying to normal commercial banking. If investment banks speculate then they do so without a government guarantee. As she says, "People at the top could still get rich, just not as rich - and not at the cost of ravaging the general population and generations to come."

Unfortunately this is closing the stable door after the horse has bolted and the author doesn't have much to say about how middle America is going to pay off the debt so cynically handed to it by Wall Street and Washington.

The next chapter of the story.

10 people found this helpful

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Sneezy777

FDR is weeping for his country.

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2021

Verified Purchase

It is June 5, 2021 as I write this. This is one more of hundreds of books published since 1971 that prove that a conservative project against democracy has been active since at least the time of Barry Goldwater. The Hippies had their number long ago. Wall Street is always only loyal to Plutocracy. Sad times.

Helpful

Camille Louise B.

Excellent! Read it. It puts all the puzzle pieces together.

Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2015

Verified Purchase

Read this book. Tell your friends to read this book. The banking and financial sector has a dark underbelly. The reason why is clear. The people running it are socialized sociopathic pigs. They battle over the food stack produced and given to them by the rest of us while they make their gluttony appear essential to our common good. What will it take for the rest of us to get it? Another trip through the financial grinder? Will that be the tipping point? They are making fools out of us. We have been working for them and didn't know it. After you get your can't live without them pills from the medical industry, trot off to your stockbroker and turn over your money for him to manage as 'investments'. When will enough be enough? Who is up for changing this? I am. Are you? Let's do it!

Thank you, Ms. Prins. Five gold stars. Nothing less for an excellent book.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Roger

Highly recommended

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

Essential reading for anyone who wants to know who really won or lost in the aftermath of the 2008 GFC. Nomi Prins has, through diligent research, condensed a vast amount of data into a very readable summary of the actual beneficiaries of the enormous bailout funds. It is truly a shocking tale!

tomomori

あの金はどこに行った。

Reviewed in Japan on March 23, 2010

Verified Purchase

著者は美女で元ウォールストリーター（ベアスターンズとゴールドマンサックスに勤務）。金融危機対処におけるカネの流れをネチネチと告発していく。ナラティブというよりも、税務署が脱税人を追い立てるような（←｢マルサの女｣からのイメージ）書き方になっている為、ワタシなどはビリオン、トリリオンが飛び交う中で途中から何が何だか、目が滑る滑る。
TARPを金融機関救済の為に使うか住宅差し押さえ回避援助に使うかというので揉めていたなあと記憶にある人はいらっしゃるだろう。財務省とFDICの間で確執があったらしいことも。しかし相当のニュース好きでもない限り、｢その後｣の追加救済やらナントカ保証やらのニュースを逐一追っていた方は少ないはず。しかしTARPなんてのは氷山の一角、議会をスルーして利用出来るFRBのバランスシートを使いつつあの手この手で16兆ドル（MMファンド保証の３兆ドルを除き）もの税金が金融システム救済というブラックホールに呑み込まれていったのである、我々が知らぬ間に、と著者は粘着質の語り口で明細書を提示していく。そして｢そのカネは絶対に返ってこない｣｢金融機関は返せない｣｢ウォールストリートが私腹を肥やすだけのことだ｣と断言する。ハンクとティムとベンの三人衆を大悪人として指さしつつ、｢これは危機を逆手に取った未曽有の『富の略奪』である｣と訴える。よって｢It takes a pillage｣のタイトルだ。
いままで読んだ金融危機関連本は数十冊だろうが著者が女性の本はかっきり二冊のみである。サンプルとしてはあまりにも貧弱だが、女の方がいわゆる｢ウォールストリートの偉いさんたち｣を見る目が冷たい。この著者などは実にビッチーで、怒りで冷え冷えとしている。男性ジャーナストの中にはたまに目がハート型になっているのがいたりするので、面白い…などとアホな感想になっているが、二十年くらいかけて蓄積された大規模なシステムブレークダウンなんだろうなあと遠くからボンヤリ眺めている人間にはこの著者さんの主張の正当性は判断しようがない。しかし情報満載なので、ご興味のある方には貴重な一冊だろう。

2 people found this helpful

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Judith Grad

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on February 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

A must read

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It Takes a Pillage: An Epic Tale of Power, Deceit, and Untold Trillions Paperback – December 7, 2010

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