High Rollers: Inside the Savings and Loan Debacle

by Martin Lowy

Lowy avoids the easy answers, like blaming it on fraud and greed, and explains how something of this magnitude could occur under the noses of those who should have protected the taxpayer.
Paul M. Horvitz, University of Houston

Market forces, not scoundrels, destroyed the savings and loan business. So says Martin Lowy in what is truly an inside look at the savings and loan crisis. Drawing upon his experience as a practicing attorney, bank officer, and savings and loan director, Lowy provides an expert account of the problems that have overwhelmed the nation's savings institutions and their government regulators.

High Rollers is the first book on the S&L crisis that provides an analytical groundwork for technical and nontechnical readers--so that both can comprehend what happened. Lowy's clear, readable style allows him to quickly describe the origins of the problems in new market forces and new technologies, and how the problems grew out of control as a result of regulatory mistakes and congressional inaction. Even his discussions of real estate lending practices and accounting issues are, in the words of Professor Horvitz, both clear to the novice and instructive to the professional.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published July 30, 1991

Reviews

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Banking regulation is a business that involves a great amount of complications - politically and commercially. This book gives an insight view of the evolvement of the S&L crisis in the 1980s and the making of it by all participating parties, in a timeline stretching 10 years.

A good reference for today’s banking crisis in the roiling SVB bankruptcy. A wake-up call can be sound for regulators and industry alike if - they reckon that history always repeats itself over and again!

[William J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic read on the slow train wreck that was the S&L crisis with a heavy focus on the regulators attempting (and failing) to regulate when the Reagan administration didn't want to spend any on-budget money.