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Highly Confident: The Crime and Punishment of Michael Milken
Disclosures by Michael Milken, his defense team, the men who prosecuted him, and his former associates and clients narrate one of the most profound events in American finance
384 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1992
84 people want to read
About the author
Jesse Kornbluth
31 books32 followersJesse Kornbluth was an American magazine writer and author. His book Notes from the New Underground is an anthology of articles he compiled from counterculture newspapers. He also wrote Airborne, a biography of Michael Jordan, and Highly Confident: The Crime and Punishment of Michael Milkin. His articles appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and many other magazines. He was a graduate of Harvard University.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 9, 2025
MyA HIGHLY "POSITIVE" PERSPECTIVE ON THE "JUNK BOND KING" OF THE 1980s
Author Jesse Kornbluth wrote in the introductory section of this 1992 book, "I have interviewed several hundred people who worked with Milken, competed against him, or brought him down. I have also spent hundreds of hours with Michael Milken, and hundreds of hours more with his family, his closest friends, and his attorneys. That unique access was immensely useful, providing both information and a privileged window into the man and his world...
"[H]e still sees himself as a convenient target, an easy symbol of a misunderstood decade, and, in comparison with others, relatively blameless. I welcome Michael Milken's decision to speak up at last... At the same time, I recognize the self-interest involved... In these pages... my intention has been to tell the human story behind a prosecution that was the biggest manhunt ever to focus on Wall Street..." (Pg. 9-10)
He notes that after Milken was named head of bond research at Drexel, "Thus began a streak that is the envy of those who know how hard it is to win consistently---in seventeen years of trading, Michael Milken would have just three losing months." (Pg. 43) Kornbluth admits, "For a man who opposed financing hostile takeovers after 1985---and who begged the firm to stop doing them after [Ivan]Boesky's plea---Milken was shockingly passive about turning his views into corporate policy. Although Drexel bankers have confirmed that Milken complained hostile takeovers were 'taking years off my life,' he never refused to work on them and never memorialized his misgivings. For someone who says he opposed hostile takeovers, the evidence is voluminous: For the next four years, Michael Milken sold every deal he was asked to sell." (Pg. 58-59)
He observes, "it's completely in character that while the sky was falling, Michael Milken could conduct business as usual in the fall of 1986. For him, there were more compelling problems than Ivan Boesky to ponder---how to solve the third world debt crisis, when to start a fund to invest in businesses in Mexico, what to do to help the Russians in their painful strides toward capitalism. He had broken free of temporal concerns, he was standing at the top of the world and looking into the future, he was contemplating vast acts of global transformation." (Pg. 91)
He suggests, "Now the very journalists he scorned would hold his years of silence against him. They'd shred his privacy, critique his business practices... By temperament, he was never going to welcome reporters into his life. And thanks to the unwritten rules of criminal law, he couldn't now even if he wanted to---no respectable criminal lawyer would advise a client to talk about his case to the press. He was the safest of targets, a potential defendant whom no one knew and who couldn't speak up and defend himself." (Pg. 121)
He asserts, "In hindsight, it didn't seem pertinent that Milken was willing to take a financial risk here---or that he had, in his view, committed more of his own money to the deal than KKR had. What stood out was how much he made, and that it looked like a sure thing, and that fund managers who did business with Drexel were now indebted to him... it looked indisputably sleazy." (Pg. 324)
He contends, "He took the plea [bargain], he says, because he couldn't take any more of the RICO threat hanging over his family and the incessant battering coming his way from the government, the press, his own firm, and his competitors. In his mind, the plea should have put an end to the assault. Just the opposite has occurred..." (Pg. 346)
He concludes, "What the prosecutors and SEC lawyers are really sensitive about, I suspect, is the revelation that they weren't as 'highly confident' as Drexel and Milken. Investment bankers weren't the only ones who swaggered through the 1980s---it was a time of excess, that virus reached far beyond Wall Street... lawmen saw that advancement, reputation, and future prosperity depended on their success in the Milken prosecution. And, like Milken, they had a sense of holy purpose. In the certainty that they were breaking important ground and saving the Republic from ruin, they may have thrown accepted rules of conduct out the window." (Pg. 365)
Readers wanting other sympathetic portraits can pick up 'Fall from Grace: The Untold Story of Michael Milken' and 'Payback: The Conspiracy to Destroy Michael Milken and His Financial Revolution'; those wanting critical perspectives might prefer 'The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham' and 'the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders' and 'Den of Thieves.'
Author Jesse Kornbluth wrote in the introductory section of this 1992 book, "I have interviewed several hundred people who worked with Milken, competed against him, or brought him down. I have also spent hundreds of hours with Michael Milken, and hundreds of hours more with his family, his closest friends, and his attorneys. That unique access was immensely useful, providing both information and a privileged window into the man and his world...
"[H]e still sees himself as a convenient target, an easy symbol of a misunderstood decade, and, in comparison with others, relatively blameless. I welcome Michael Milken's decision to speak up at last... At the same time, I recognize the self-interest involved... In these pages... my intention has been to tell the human story behind a prosecution that was the biggest manhunt ever to focus on Wall Street..." (Pg. 9-10)
He notes that after Milken was named head of bond research at Drexel, "Thus began a streak that is the envy of those who know how hard it is to win consistently---in seventeen years of trading, Michael Milken would have just three losing months." (Pg. 43) Kornbluth admits, "For a man who opposed financing hostile takeovers after 1985---and who begged the firm to stop doing them after [Ivan]Boesky's plea---Milken was shockingly passive about turning his views into corporate policy. Although Drexel bankers have confirmed that Milken complained hostile takeovers were 'taking years off my life,' he never refused to work on them and never memorialized his misgivings. For someone who says he opposed hostile takeovers, the evidence is voluminous: For the next four years, Michael Milken sold every deal he was asked to sell." (Pg. 58-59)
He observes, "it's completely in character that while the sky was falling, Michael Milken could conduct business as usual in the fall of 1986. For him, there were more compelling problems than Ivan Boesky to ponder---how to solve the third world debt crisis, when to start a fund to invest in businesses in Mexico, what to do to help the Russians in their painful strides toward capitalism. He had broken free of temporal concerns, he was standing at the top of the world and looking into the future, he was contemplating vast acts of global transformation." (Pg. 91)
He suggests, "Now the very journalists he scorned would hold his years of silence against him. They'd shred his privacy, critique his business practices... By temperament, he was never going to welcome reporters into his life. And thanks to the unwritten rules of criminal law, he couldn't now even if he wanted to---no respectable criminal lawyer would advise a client to talk about his case to the press. He was the safest of targets, a potential defendant whom no one knew and who couldn't speak up and defend himself." (Pg. 121)
He asserts, "In hindsight, it didn't seem pertinent that Milken was willing to take a financial risk here---or that he had, in his view, committed more of his own money to the deal than KKR had. What stood out was how much he made, and that it looked like a sure thing, and that fund managers who did business with Drexel were now indebted to him... it looked indisputably sleazy." (Pg. 324)
He contends, "He took the plea [bargain], he says, because he couldn't take any more of the RICO threat hanging over his family and the incessant battering coming his way from the government, the press, his own firm, and his competitors. In his mind, the plea should have put an end to the assault. Just the opposite has occurred..." (Pg. 346)
He concludes, "What the prosecutors and SEC lawyers are really sensitive about, I suspect, is the revelation that they weren't as 'highly confident' as Drexel and Milken. Investment bankers weren't the only ones who swaggered through the 1980s---it was a time of excess, that virus reached far beyond Wall Street... lawmen saw that advancement, reputation, and future prosperity depended on their success in the Milken prosecution. And, like Milken, they had a sense of holy purpose. In the certainty that they were breaking important ground and saving the Republic from ruin, they may have thrown accepted rules of conduct out the window." (Pg. 365)
Readers wanting other sympathetic portraits can pick up 'Fall from Grace: The Untold Story of Michael Milken' and 'Payback: The Conspiracy to Destroy Michael Milken and His Financial Revolution'; those wanting critical perspectives might prefer 'The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham' and 'the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders' and 'Den of Thieves.'
August 18, 2024
Reads like a novel. The rise and fall of junk bond king, Michael Milken.
April 10, 2015
Excellent
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews