Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Bound to be controversial, this impressive expose by three journalists charges that the S & L industry was taken over by a national network of Mafiosi, corrupt thrift officers, appraisers, auditors and arms- and drug-dealers laundering money, all of whom exploited opportunities provided by the 1982 deregulation. Fortified with unlimited broker deposits, the network plundered hundreds of federally insured thrifts. The authors discount the role of high oil prices, the Sunbelt recession and other factors as catalysts in the S & L disaster. Excepting Federal Home Loan Bank Board chairman Erwin Gray, who fought to limit deposit brokerage, Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo accuse the Justice Department, the courts and other federal and state agencies for ignoring or covering up four years of fraud. They also maintain that the guilty have not been punished and little of the loot has been recovered out of official fear of revelation.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Three investigative reporters trace what has happened to the savings-and-loan industry since President Reagan signed into law the Garn-St. Germain bill which deregulated the way thrift institutions can invest money in order to better compete with financial firms that offered more attractive alternatives to savings-and-loan depositors. Some of the results involved shoddy investments that ruined banks and put the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation in deep financial trouble. The authors chronicle some of the more serious cases that involved illegal schemes, organized crime, greedy bank officials, and scandal. Like a good mystery, this is hard to put down, and if the reader has trouble with the jargon, there is a good glossary. A very timely and popular item.
- Steven J. Mayover, Free Lib . of Philadelphia
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.