Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America

I have read many of the recently published books on the financial crises over the past few years in an effort to better understand what happened. This book is by far the best that I have read to date. It details not only what happened and how the crises was created but also who was behind it and how they benefited. The most interesting chapters discuss the many laws that were broken by the large financial institutions and complete absence of prosecution by any law enforcement agency in the US.

Even if you have read every previous book about the financial crisis, you should (actually, it is your patriotic duty to) read this one and then tell your friends to. Ferguson, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the producer of the Academy-Award-winning movie "Inside Job" has massive credibility, an even-handed, deadly serious temperament, and an overwhelmingly convincing argument. It is very simple. For the last thirty years, in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis, America's financial industry has become systematically criminal. Not just greedy, not just unethical. Criminal.

Ferguson marshals overwhelming evidence of repeated criminal violations by the banks and others. Fraud, insider trading, money laundering, bribery, perjury, assisting drug gangs and other criminals, tax evasion, on and on. Day in and day out. A basic business model. He provides evidence that the same violations committed twenty years ago or by people outside of banking have produced serious criminal charges and convictions (remember Michael Milken and Martha Stuart?). Yet even after the financial collapse that has wrecked millions of lives and is now toppling Western democracies, there have been zero criminal prosecutions of major bankers, ratings agencies, hedge fund managers, or other financial players. None. At most the banks have paid trifling fines, admitted nothing, and then repeated the same crimes over and over.

Why? Because they pay off both political parties and because they now belong to a corrupt, entrenched American oligarchy similar to those in Russia or Mexico. They are quite literally too big to prosecute. The banks have succeeded in gutting the regulatory agencies, intimidating opponents, and buying political influence. As in Zola's famous book, "J'accuse," Ferguson does not so much raise new evidence as simply state the obvious. He provides an excellent overview of the financial industry since 1980 and the 2008 crisis. But his main contribution is to simply point out that all this was, in fact, criminal. And nothing has been done. The same large-scale criminality simply continues, the same crimes committed, the same apologies, the same fines, the same promises, then back to business. As long as the actors themselves are not convicted and can retire wealthy in good social standing, nothing will change.

Ferguson goes so far as to name names and provide the government with the evidence and the laws violated. He hands it to the Justice Department on a silver platter, as have many others. Yet nothing happens. Being more of a leftist, I would go further than Ferguson and say that, under a fiat money system, the banks have effectively privatized tax collection. By a complex, yet blatant three-step process, our tax money that should be going to social security, for example, is going to a tiny, wealthy, criminal elite and their inside "shareholders." Ferguson argues for mass criminal prosecutions of the sort that happens outside of banking. I would also argue for nationalization of major banking functions. Either we nationalize banks or the banks continue to privatize national fiscal policy. In any case, this book is lucid, illuminating, important. No "vampire squids" or screechy moralizing. Just a serious civic polemic. And by the way, the reading is also excellent.

I've ended up listening to a number of books on the 2008 Financial Crisis including "All the Devils Are Here," "13 Bankers," "Griftopia" and tangentially related "No One Would Listen." I approached "Predator Nation" with the thought that I would not necessarily learn anything new, as I had seen Ferguson's documentary, "Inside Job." I found this an engaging listen although it does retread some of the material in ???Inside Job.??? Ferguson remarks that he wrote the book in order to make a sustained argument for prosecution of financial sector players. This part of the book was informative, but I gained the most insight with Mr. Ferguson???s broader analysis of the financial sector as parasitic and unproductive, and his weaving of issues like corporate governance and (mis)management, education, and money in politics gave significant insight into the past 40 years and the crisis. If you liked ???Inside Job,??? you will learn more. If you want even grander weaving of the ideas, I recommend ???13 Bankers??? and Kevin Phillips??? ???American Theocracy.???

How greed has corrupted American politics & commerce, and is bringing us to ruin.

This is a well-researched, damning indictment of the elite of Wall Street and their funding of the corruption of the US political & academic systems. It lays bare the amoral, immoral and sometimes criminal behavior of individuals and institutions. If you have any interest in knowing what really impacts your daily life today and the future of your children tomorrow, then you should read this book.

I recommend this book to everyone who wants to know more about what happened 5 years ago in the biggest scam ever. Make sure you have a strong stomach.
It just isn't normal that these financial criminals got away with what they did.
I'm convinced that at this moment the system is so fragile, that these same bunch of evil blackmails every president since clown Bush jr. and their administrations to let them go on or otherwise to have the system collapse even more severe.

Not an easy book to like but a book worth understanding

The author - He did the work Government has failed to do.

NA

NO - it is not a guilty pleasure book.

Excellent work by Charles Ferguson. He seems to have done the nation and perhaps the world a service. If only the people, bureaucrats, media and politicians will take head and work to punish the truly guilty and reform the system then we can have hope once again.

Wealth of information and facts

A must read for everyone, even those who don't know much about finance.

Charles Ferguson is very biased.he makes arguments that are not based on the facts he presents.

not sure

strong narration

the last chapters. he introduces a set of conclusions that are not well thought out. he present solutions and conclusions that are not based on the facts he presents.

2/3s of book was interesting.he lost me in the end.Strongly biased towards socialism.