Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America

by Nomi Prins

Critical, independent voices are seldom found within the citadels of international finance. That's what makes Nomi Prins unique. During fifteen years as an executive at skyscraping banks like Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers, Prins never lost her ability to see the broader picture. She walked away from the game in 2002 out of disgust with the burgeoning corporate corruption, just as its magnitude was becoming clear to the public. In this acclaimed exposé, named one of the best books of 2004 by The Economist , Barron's , Library Journal , and The Progressive , Prins provides fascinating firsthand details of day-to-day life in the financial leviathans, with all its rich absurdities. She demonstrates how the much-publicized fraud of recent years resulted from deregulation that trashed the rules of responsible corporate behavior, and not simply the unbridled greed of a select few. While the stock market roared on the back of phony balance sheets, executives made out like bandits and Congress looked the other way. Worse yet, as the new foreword to this edition makes clear, everything remains in place for a repeat performance.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Politics, Finance

342 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

About the author

Nomi Prins is a former global investment banker, financial journalist, and sought-after international speaker and economic advisor, Her new book Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World is out May 1, 2018. Her previous books include All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power , It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, a devastating expose into corporate corruption, political collusion and Wall Street deception which was chosen as a Best Book of 2004 by The Economist, Barron's and The Library Journal., Jacked, and the thriller, The Trail, published under her pseudonym, Natalia Prentice which was selected to Forbes CEO Book Club in April, 2008.

Before becoming a journalist, Nomi worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and a Senior managing director 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, PBS, CSPAN and other TV stations and been featured on dozens of radio shows including CNNRadio, Marketplace Radio, Air America, NPR, and various BBC stations. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Newsday, Fortune, Forbes, Mother Jones, Slate.com, The Guardian UK, The Nation, The American Prospect, and other publications.

Reviews

[Robert Corbett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must read, even though it is about the roots of the previous bubble' implosion, since nearly all the factors behind the current one--except for massive mortgage fraud--were there in 2001 when Enron (and others) was revealed to be a house of cards sucking up the income of ordinary people. (Enron was essentially a hedge fund on top of a small energy services corporation, as AIG has been revealed to be a hedge fund on top of the assets of depositors and insurees.) If you thought the tech bubble's bursting was because of the failure of tech companies to realize the markets they predicted, this book will correct you. The same kind of financial monte games that began in earnest with Milken and his like and the leveraged buyouts of the 80s have continued up until 2007 or so when it was apparent that the housing market was unsustainable. Prinz' book is a must read also because she writes from an insider perspective of financial analyst. She is not a whinging hippie or metaphysical marxist, but someone who witnessed (and carried out in some cases) the actual moves that have brought the country (and the world} to this pass. It will make you angry, but there is a real need for people to understand what has been going on with the US economy (and it has been going on for years).

[Sean Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

First I should note that as we go back further and further, my memories of these books are on occasion going to get dimmer and dimmer (I read Prins’s book, for example in early 2005).

That being said, I remember enjoying it as a good skewer of the financial world from a woman who was a part of it (Prins is a former director at legendary Goldman Sachs, and , last time I checked, now works for a progressive think tank). I have to say my politics aren’t nearly as left wing economically as they were just a couple of years ago, but I still think books like this are super relevant. It is obvious that places like Goldman Sachs are in it for the money, and the policies of deregulation helped people like Enron do the nasty things they did, but it is still nice to see those arguments laid our in a smart way.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this one up to get a better handle on the current economy. The book is about what led up to the bubble burst around 2001. It's written by a woman who worked for all the big names...lehman brothers, goldman sachs, bear stearns. It's pretty dense, lots o' econ speak. But it's interesting to understand how the things that were happening 8 or 9 years ago have shaped the current state of the economy.

[Sometime Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is normally not the kind of book I would pick up and decide to read. However, getting involved in the APEs community after the GME sneeze, I was beginning to learn some of the corruption that was taking place. Nomi Prins name had come up in the Superstonk community and it was then that I decided I was gonna try to read her books.

This is the second book I've read by her, however the first non-fiction book I read by her. This book reminded me about my smooth brain when it comes to finance. I will say though, I certainly gained a few wrinkles at least. No doubt, after reading this book. However there are still many things to learn before I really truely comprehend this book.

From what I do understand is that no matter the time, there is always corruption going on, and it goes back far into history.

Given Nomi Prins proximity to the heart of the corruption occurring and her amazing knowledge on the inner workings, this book is a wealth of information. It is jam packed and at times a bit hard to read, probably due to the target audience not being someone like me. Perhaps a book for someone to read if they themselves have a finance background. The level of detail she gets into is truely astounding, however it certainly feels very hard to read at times. There are still many moments when it feels like I'm finally understanding and putting some pieces together. So I wouldn't say it's unreadable.

It's a great book that gets into the nitty gritty history and happenings of the crash in the 2000s, a time when I myself was only a child. So its interesting to think about some of the news I was seeing back then and applying a deeper understanding to what was happening around that time and providing more context.

It's also a great backdrop to understanding what is currently happening now and how deep it goes and how difficult it can be to get these issues resolved.

So, if you're like me, it will be a slow crawl with your favorite search engine to get to the end of the book, but you'll certainly learn something or two by the end.

[Road Worrier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Lewis in his Undoing Democracy book hits on a few good points, but for the big picture on why the non millionaires in the USA are getting poorer every year as bills get higher, read this book on corporate crime. See this illustration of what we are losing to deregulation; otherwise the word is just another bit of the nightly news that we ignore at our own peril. I can't think of anyone I'd rather have as president of the USA than Nomi Prins, as if she were to make a few reforms the positive ripples would be felt worldwide.

[Palash Karia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dense, repetitive in parts, quite skimmable (what I did), but also unmarred by 2008 crash. Provides good perspective on the large scale financial engineering & outright fraud at play in big corps pre-2008, covering the likes on Enron, Worldcom and Global Crossing.

[Diane C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of it is pedantic finance speak, but most of it is a clear and eagle eye look at our disastrous financial system, dominated by corporations run amuck.

It was published in 2004, and illustrates why we revisited a crash, an even worse one, in 2008 and currently.

[Jim Noyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

well documented, clear narrative of how corporate malfeasance happened. you won't find this detail, in a readable, interesting form, many other places