It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street

Come chat with Nomi Prins about her new book. Hosted by Max Fraad Wolff. At FDL Saturday, September 26, 2009 5:00pm Eastern.

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’ve all watched as packs of former Big Finance leaders commandeer posts in Washington to lavish trillions in payouts to "save" big Wall Street firms, only to use that money for everything but fixing Main Street’s financial condition.

Former Wall Streeter Nomi Prins has been watching, too, and she isn’t going to let them get away with it. She knows all about Big Business and big money-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.

• Explains that the current crisis is not because citizens could borrow a little more than they could afford, but because Wall Street converted their loans to assets to allow them to borrow much, much more than they could afford
• Reveals all the ways corporations inhaling bailout money have gamed the system to get the most money with the least oversight
• Slams a financial system that will never change, no matter what happens with the economy, if the government doesn’t force it to change
• Written by a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, now a senior fellow at Demos, with two books under her belt, who writes regularly on corruption in Washington and Wall Street for places from Fortune to Mother Jones

If you’ve found yourself getting upset and frustrated with how the bank bailout went bust for the American people, It Takes a Pillage will give voice to your outrage and a deeper, clearer understanding of what we really have to be angry about. (Amazon.com)

Before becoming a journalist, Nomi worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and running the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London. She has appeared internationally on BBC World and BBC Radio and nationally in the U.S. on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, ABCNews, CSPAN, Democracy Now, Fox Business News and other TV stations. She has been featured on dozens of radio shows across the U.S. including CNNRadio, Marketplace Radio, Air America, NPR, WNYC-AM and regional Pacifica stations. (http://www.nomiprins.com/bio.html)