Volume 38, Number 3 · January 31, 1991
The Greatest American Shambles
By Michael M. Thomas
The Greatest-Ever Bank Robbery: The Collapse of the Savings and Loan Industry
by Martin Mayer
Scribner's, 354 pp., $22.50
Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans
by Stephen Pizzo, by Mary Fricker, by Paul Muolo
McGraw-Hill, 443 pp., $19.95
Bankers, Builders, Knaves and Thieves: The $300 Million Scam at ESM
by Donald L. Maggin
Contemporary Books, 308 pp., $21.95
Who Robbed America? A Citizen's Guide to the S&L Scandal
by Michael Waldman, Introduction by Ralph Nader
Random House, 250 pp., $10.95 (paper)
The Daisy Chain: How Borrowed Billions Sank a Texas S&L
by James O'Shea
Pocket Books, 328 pp., $19.95
Overdrawn: The Bailout of American Savings
by Michael A. Robinson
Dutton, 303 pp., $19.95
The S&L Debacle: Public Policy Lessons for Bank and Thrift Reevaluation
by Lawrence J. White
Oxford University Press, 224 pp., $22.95
We have here, in round figures, 2,200 pages devoted to what is unarguably the greatest financial shambles (or, as the authors of these books and articles with justice variously prefer, 'robbery,' 'debacle,' 'looting,' 'scam,' 'crisis,' 'scandal') in American history, and we can be certain that at least that number of pages again is either in the bookstores or about to be. Surely the degree of coverage is justified by the scale of the calamity, for that is what it is. So far, Washington is guessing it will have to make good on roughly $150 billion, consisting of insured deposits that have gone up the chimney and of out-of-pocket costs and subsidies associated with a bailout. But that is just the beginning. The ultimate cost to the taxpayer over the thirty years it is likely to take to finance the bailout with government bonds is currently estimated at $500 billion.
Review, 8068 words
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