Download or read book Confessions of a Subprime Lender written by Richard Bitner and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-06-16 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Former subprime lender Richard Bitner once worked in an industry that started out helping disadvantaged customers but collapsed due to greed, lack of financial control and willful ignorance. In Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance, he reveals the truth about how the subprime lending business spiraled out of control, pushed home prices to unsustainable levels, and turned unqualified applicants into qualified borrowers through creative financing. Learn about the ways the mortgage industry can be fixed with his twenty suggestions for critical change.
Download or read book Diary of a Very Bad Year written by Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-06-22 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First Book from n+1—an Essential Chronicle of Our Financial Crisis HFM: Where are you going to buy protection on the U.S. government's credit? I mean, if the U.S. defaults, what bank is going to be able to make good on that contract? Who are you going to buy that contract from, the Martians? n+1: When does this begin to feel like less of a cyclical thing, like the weather, and more of a permanent, end-of-the-world kind of thing? HFM: When you see me selling apples out on the street, that's when you should go stock up on guns and ammunition.
Download or read book Greed Fraud and Ignorance written by Richard Bitner and published by . This book was released on 2008-03-01 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Financial Crisis of Our Time written by Robert W. Kolb and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-28 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2006 residential real estate prices peaked and started to fall, then threatened the world's financial institutions in 2007, and confronted the global economy with disaster in 2008. In the past few years, millions of people have lost very substantial portions of their wealth. And while the markets have rebounded considerably, they are still far from a full recovery. Now, professional economists, policy experts, public intellectuals, and the public at large are all struggling to understand the crisis that has engulfed us. In The Financial Crisis of Our Time, Robert W. Kolb provides an essential, comprehensive review of the context within which these events unfolded, arguing that while the crisis had no single cause, housing finance played a central role, and that to understand what happened, one must comprehend the mechanism by which the housing industry came into crisis. Kolb offers a history of the housing finance system as it developed throughout the twentieth century, and especially in the period from 1990 to 2006, showing how the originate-to-distribute model of mortgage financing presented market participants with a "clockwork of perverse incentives." In this system, various participants-simply by pursuing their narrow personal interests-participated in an elaborate mechanism that led to disaster. The book then gives a narrative of the crisis as it developed and analyzes all of the participants in the housing market, from the home buyers to investors in collaterialized debt obligations (CDOs). At each step, the book explains in a nontechnical manner the essential relationships among the market participants and zeroes in on the incentives facing each party. The book also includes an extensive glossary and a detailed, authoritative timeline of the subprime financial crisis. Offering a unique look at the participants and incentives within the housing finance industry and its role in the biggest financial catastrophe in recent history, Robert W. Kolb provides one of the most comprehensive and illuminating accounts of the events that will be studied for decades to come as the financial crisis of our time.
Download or read book Housing Policy in the United States written by Alex F. Schwartz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic primer for its subject, Housing Policy in the United States, has been substantially revised in the wake of the 2007 near-collapse of the housing market and the nation’s recent signs of recovery. Like its previous editions, this standard volume offers a broad overview of the field, but expands to include new information on how the crisis has affected the nation’s housing challenges, and the extent to which the federal government has addressed them. Schwartz also includes the politics of austerity that has permeated almost all aspects of federal policymaking since the Congressional elections of 2010, new initiatives to rehabilitate public housing, and a new chapter on the foreclosure crisis. The latest available data on housing conditions, housing discrimination, housing finance, and programmatic expenditures is included, along with all new developments in federal housing policy. This book is the perfect foundational text for urban studies, urban planning, social policy, and housing policy courses.
Download or read book The Skinny on the Housing Crisis written by Jim Randel and published by RAND Media Co. This book was released on 2009 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Skinny on the Housing Crisis is an in-depth look into how America dragged itself into the worst housing and credit crisis since The Great Depression. The story is told through the experience of a young couple, Billy and Beth, who in 2006 buy their first house. Two years later, they lose their house to foreclosure.
Download or read book Keeping the Republic written by Mitch Daniels and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-07-31 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what sort of government the delegates had created. His reply to the crowd: "A republic, if you can keep it." Now America's most respected governor explains just how close we've come to losing the republic, and how we can restore it to greatness. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has been called "the most presidential man in America." He has brought more change to his state in a few years than most see in decades. During his tenure, Daniels turned a $700 million deficit into a billion dollar surplus, balanced Indiana's budget even during the recession, converted its once unattractive business climate into one of the strongest for private sector job growth. The Hoosier state is now a model of good and efficient governance. Its public sector payroll is now the smallest per capita in the nation. And yet services have improved across the board. Even its Bureau of Motor Vehicles -- the ultimate symbol of dysfunctional bureaucracy - has been rated the best in the country. Daniels has done this by focusing on government's core responsibilities, cutting taxes, empowering citizens, and performing what he calls an "old tribal ritual" - spending less money than his state takes in, while distinguishing between skepticism towards big government and hostility towards all government. Unfortunately few politicians have the discipline or courage to follow his lead. And worse, many assume that Americans are too intimidated, gullible or dim-witted to make wise decisions about their health care, mortgages, the education of their kids, and other important issues. The result has been a steady decline in freedom, as elite government experts -- "our benevolent betters", in Daniels' phrase -- try to regulate every aspect of our lives. Daniels bluntly calls our exploding national debt "a survival-level threat to the America we have known." He shows how our underperforming public schools have produced a workforce unprepared to compete with those of other countries and ignorant of the requirements of citizenship in a free society. He lays out the risk of greatly diminished long term prosperity and the loss of our position of world leadership. He warns that we may lose the uniquely American promise of upward mobility for all. But, the good news is that it's not too late to save America. However, real change can't be imposed from above. It has to be what he calls "change that believes in you" -- a belief that Americans, properly informed of the facts, will pull together to make the necessary changes and that they are best- equipped to make the decisions governing their own lives. As he puts it: "I urge great care not to drift into a loss of faith in the American people. We must never yield to the self-fulfilling despair that these problems are immutable, or insurmountable. Americans are still a people born to liberty. Addressed as free-born, autonomous men and women of God-given dignity, they will rise yet again to drive back a mortal enemy."
Download or read book Contagion written by John R. Talbott and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-01-08 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author John Talbott outlines the troublesome economic times ahead and what can be done about them Tough times are here, and author John Talbott-who accurately predicted the dot.com technology stock collapse as well as the recent housing, mortgage, and financial crises-argues that the coming global recession will be unlike anything we've ever seen. In Contagion, Talbott turns his attention to this crisis and offers insights on what can be done to navigate such treacherous terrain. Talbott sets the stage by discussing how government borrowing and spending on the war, healthcare, Social Security, and corporate giveaways combined with dramatic increases in personal spending, fueled by credit card and mortgage debt, have funded unsustainable levels of personal and government consumption. Offers practical suggestions as to how investors and homeowners can best weather this storm with straightforward advice on where to invest Examines real estate and housing issues to help you make the best decisions possible in this arena Details the best ways to utilize stocks, bonds, TIPS, and commodities, and to prosper during this global crisis If you really want to protect yourself from the unfolding economic crisis, then Contagion is the book you need to read.
Download or read book When Should Law Forgive written by Martha Minow and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Martha Minow is a voice of moral clarity: a lawyer arguing for forgiveness, a scholar arguing for evidence, a person arguing for compassion.” —Jill Lepore, author of These Truths In an age increasingly defined by accusation and resentment, Martha Minow makes an eloquent, deeply-researched argument in favor of strengthening the role of forgiveness in the administration of law. Through three case studies, Minow addresses such foundational issues as: Who has the right to forgive? Who should be forgiven? And under what terms? The result is as lucid as it is compassionate: A compelling study of the mechanisms of justice by one of this country’s foremost legal experts.
Download or read book Fraud in the Markets written by Peter Goldmann and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic look at fraud's role in our financial markets-and how you can protect yourself Fraud In the Markets reveals the critical role fraud played in the global financial crisis-even as many of the perpetrators continue to go unpunished. Shedding light on the reckless conduct of the former senior executives at major Wall Street firms such as Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and others just before their collapse, this timely book shows how the culture of "anything goes" on Wall Street fueled the innovation of exotic but deadly asset-backed securities. A frank insider look at the most dramatic economic and business headlines in recent memory, you will find revealing discussion of The egregiously fraudulent lending practices that engulfed the entire US mortgage industry The brazenly deceptive marketing of asset-backed securities A road map to prevent similar disasters from recurring Fraud in the Markets offers forward-looking advice, with practical guidelines for protecting yourself and your company from various forms of fraud that were found to have played a role in the current economic and financial crisis.
Download or read book Slapped by the Invisible Hand written by Gary B. Gorton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-08 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally written for a conference of the Federal Reserve, Gary Gorton's "The Panic of 2007" garnered enormous attention and is considered by many to be the most convincing take on the recent economic meltdown. Now, in Slapped by the Invisible Hand, Gorton builds upon this seminal work, explaining how the securitized-banking system, the nexus of financial markets and instruments unknown to most people, stands at the heart of the financial crisis. Gorton shows that the Panic of 2007 was not so different from the Panics of 1907 or of 1893, except that, in 2007, most people had never heard of the markets that were involved, didn't know how they worked, or what their purposes were. Terms like subprime mortgage, asset-backed commercial paper conduit, structured investment vehicle, credit derivative, securitization, or repo market were meaningless. In this superb volume, Gorton makes all of this crystal clear. He shows that the securitized banking system is, in fact, a real banking system, allowing institutional investors and firms to make enormous, short-term deposits. But as any banking system, it was vulnerable to a panic. Indeed the events starting in August 2007 can best be understood not as a retail panic involving individuals, but as a wholesale panic involving institutions, where large financial firms "ran" on other financial firms, making the system insolvent. An authority on banking panics, Gorton is the ideal person to explain the financial calamity of 2007. Indeed, as the crisis unfolded, he was working inside an institution that played a central role in the collapse. Thus, this book presents the unparalleled and invaluable perspective of a top scholar who was also a key insider.
Download or read book Anatomy of a Banking Scandal written by Robert Pasley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1990s, the First National Bank of Keystone in West Virginia began buying and securitizing subprime mortgages from all over the country, and quickly grew from a tiny bank with just $100 million in assets to over $1.1 billion. For three years, it was listed as the most profitable large community bank in the country. It was all a fraud. All of the securitization deals the bank entered into lost money. To hide that fact, bank insiders started cooking the books, and concealing that they were also embezzling millions of dollars from the bank. This was all hidden from the bank's attorneys and auditors, federal bank examiners, and even the board of directors of the bank. To keep the examiners at bay, the bank insiders did everything possible to avoid giving them access to documents they were entitled to see, documents they knew would sink their scheme. The head of the bank even went so far as to bury four large truckloads of documents in a ditch on her ranch. Robert S. Pasley explores the failure of the First National Bank of Keystone, the intrigue involved, and the lessons that could have been learned?and still can be learned?about how banks operate, how federal banking regulators supervise financial institutions, how agencies interact with one another, and how such failures can be avoided in the future.
Download or read book Ethics and Finance written by John Hendry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive introduction to the ethical issues raised by modern finance.
Download or read book The Ascent of Money written by Niall Ferguson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-11-13 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 10th anniversary edition, with new chapters on the crash, Chimerica, and cryptocurrency "[An] excellent, just in time guide to the history of finance and financial crisis." —The Washington Post "Fascinating." —Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek In this updated edition, Niall Ferguson brings his classic financial history of the world up to the present day, tackling the populist backlash that followed the 2008 crisis, the descent of "Chimerica" into a trade war, and the advent of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, with his signature clarity and expert lens. The Ascent of Money reveals finance as the backbone of history, casting a new light on familiar events: the Renaissance enabled by Italian foreign exchange dealers, the French Revolution traced back to a stock market bubble, the 2008 crisis traced from America's bankruptcy capital, Memphis, to China's boomtown, Chongqing. We may resent the plutocrats of Wall Street but, as Ferguson argues, the evolution of finance has rivaled the importance of any technological innovation in the rise of civilization. Indeed, to study the ascent and descent of money is to study the rise and fall of Western power itself.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of White Collar and Corporate Crime written by Lawrence M. Salinger and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 1212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the first edition of the Encyclopedia of White Collar and Corporate Crime was produced in 2004, the number and severity of these crimes have risen to the level of calamity, so much so that many experts attribute the near-Depression of 2008 to white-collar malfeasance, namely crimes of greed and excess by bankers and financial institutions. Whether the perpetrators were prosecuted or not, white-collar and corporate crime came near to collapsing the U.S. economy. In the 7 years since the first edition was produced we have also seen the largest Ponzi scheme in history (Maddoff), an ecological disaster caused by British Petroleum and its subcontractors (Gulf Oil Spill), and U.S. Defense Department contractors operating like vigilantes in Iraq (Blackwater). White-collar criminals have been busy, and the Second Edition of this encyclopedia captures what has been going on in the news and behind the scenes with new articles and updates to past articles.
Download or read book America Welcome to the Poorhouse written by Jane White and published by FT Press. This book was released on 2009-09-14 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Crack open this book and enter a bromide-free zone. Jane White knows why American families feel as if they are on a treadmill running out of control, and she explains the reasons with clarity, insight, and rare honesty. She also offers several practical suggestions for how we as individuals, families, and a nation can get out of the mess. Policymakers would be wise to listen.” Evan Cooper, Deputy Editor, InvestmentNews “This eye-opening book sounds the alarm about many Americans’ dim financial futures if consumers, businesses, and politicians don’t change their ways. Jane White lays blame and names names. Until change happens, White offers prescriptions for your biggest money concerns--retirement, housing, college costs, and credit cards--featuring tried-and-true advice.” Gregory Karp, Syndicated Newspaper Columnist and Author of The 1-2-3 Money Plan and Living Rich by Spending Smart “Americans need this vigorous wake-up call if they are to make it through the first half of the 21st century. They are burying themselves in debt--for education, for homes, and for toys--leaving too little for savings and investment. Jane White shows them where they are going wrong and how they can put themselves right.” Thomas G. Donlan, Editorial Page Editor, Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly “Jane White has written a barnburner of a book. Though the title may cause alarm, America, Welcome to the Poorhouse is ultimately reassuring. We can protect our own financial futures if we get wise--and get together to demand real change.” Jacob S. Hacker, Author of The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream Too many American families are racing toward financial catastrophe--saddled with exploding credit card and college debt, out-of-control housing costs, and underfunded 401(k) accounts. America, Welcome to the Poorhouse reveals the political and economic forces that got us into this predicament, strategies to get Congress to enact needed reform, and practical tips you won’t find anywhere else on how to make the most of your money until reform happens. White offers indispensable practical advice for regaining control of your own financial future--specific strategies for reducing your debt, safeguarding your retirement, and helping your children get the education they’ll need to compete in today’s world. Shrimp on the barbie, Koala bears, and a secure retirement. Why most Australians will end up with at least half a million dollars in their version of a 401(k) plan--and what we can do to transform our 401(k) plans into actual pensions. How the mortgage industry lobbied to dismantle regulation and offer bait-and-switch adjustable rate mortgages. How to protect yourself--no matter what happens. Your personal plan for saving for retirement, finding “bargain” colleges, and getting out of credit card debt. How to build a citizens lobby that wins. Making taxpayers as powerful as the so-called financial services industry and getting rid of the members of Congress that do its bidding.
