The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street

by Robert Scheer

In The Great American Stickup, celebrated journalist Robert Scheer uncovers the hidden story behind one of the greatest financial crimes of our the Wall Street financial crash of 2008 and the consequent global recession. Instead of going where other journalists have gone in search of this story -- the board rooms and trading floors of the big Wall Street firms -- Scheer goes back to Washington, D.C., a veritable crime scene, beginning in the 1980s, where the captains of the finance industry, their lobbyists and allies among leading politicians destroyed an American regulatory system that had been functioning effectively since the era of the New Deal. This is a story largely forgotten or overlooked by the mainstream media, who wasted more than two decades with their boosterish coverage of Wall Street. Scheer argues that the roots of the disaster go back to the free-market propaganda of the Reagan years and, most damagingly, to the bipartisan deregulation of the banking industry undertaken with the full support of "progressive" Bill Clinton. In fact, if this debacle has a name, Scheer suggests, it is the "Clinton Bubble," that era when the administration let its friends on Wall Street write legislation that razed decades of robust financial regulation. It was Wall Street and Democratic Party darling Robert Rubin along with his clique of economist super-friends -- Alan Greenspan, Lawrence Summers, and a few others -- who inflated a giant real estate bubble by purposely not regulating the derivatives market, resulting in the pain and hardship millions are experiencing now.The Great American Stickup is both a brilliant telling of the story of the Clinton financial clique and the havoc it wrought -- informed by whistleblowers such as Brooksley Born, who goes on the record for Scheer -- and an unsparing anatomy of the American business and political class. It is also a cautionary those who form the nucleus of the Clinton clique are now advising the Obama administration.

Genres: Politics, Economics, Nonfiction, History, Finance, Business, Research

303 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Robert Scheer is an American journalist who writes a column for Truthdig which is nationally syndicated in publications such as the San Francisco Chronicle and The Nation. He teaches communications as a professor at the University of Southern California and is Editor in Chief for the online magazine Truthdig.

Scheer was born to immigrant parents. His mother, a Russian Jew, and his father, a German, both worked in the garment industry. After graduating from City College of New York with a degree in economics, he studied as a fellow at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, and then did further economics graduate work at the Center for Chinese Studies at UC Berkeley. Scheer has also been a Poynter fellow at Yale University, and was a fellow in arms control at Stanford, the same post once held by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

While working at City Lights Books in San Francisco, Scheer co-authored the book, Cuba, an American tragedy (1964), with Maurice Zeitlin. Between 1964 and 1969, he served, variously, as the Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor-in-chief of Ramparts magazine. He reported from Cambodia, China, North Korea, Russia, Latin America and the Middle East (including the Six-Day War), as well as on national security matters in the United States. While in Cuba, where he interviewed Fidel Castro, Scheer obtained an introduction by the Cuban leader for the diary of Che Guevara — which Scheer had already obtained, with the assistance of French journalist Michele Ray, for publication in Ramparts and by Bantam Books.

During this period Scheer made a bid for elective office as one of the first anti-Vietnam War candidates. He challenged U.S. Representative Jeffrey Cohelan in the 1966 Democratic primary. Cohelan was a liberal, but like most Democratic officeholders at that time, he supported the Vietnam War. Scheer lost, but won over 45% of the vote (and carried Berkeley), a strong showing against an incumbent that demonstrated the rising strength of New Left Sixties radicalism.

In July 1970, Scheer accompanied as a journalist a Black Panther Party delegation, led by Eldridge Cleaver, to North Korea, China, and Vietnam. The delegation also contained people from the San Francisco Red Guard, the women's liberation movement, the Peace and Freedom Party, Newsreel, and the Movement for a Democratic Military. The purpose of the delegation was to "express solidarity with the struggles of the Koreans" and to "bring back to Babylon information about their communist society and their fight against U.S. imperialism," according to the Black Panthers' publication.

After several years freelancing for magazines, including New Times and Playboy, Scheer joined the Los Angeles Times in 1976 as a reporter. There he met Narda Zacchino, a reporter whom he later wed in the paper's news room. As a national correspondent for 17 years at the Times, he wrote articles and series on such diverse topics as the Soviet Union during glasnost, the Jews of Los Angeles, arms control, urban crises, national politics and the military, as well as covering several presidential elections. The Times entered Scheer's work for the Pulitzer Prize 11 times, and he was a finalist for the Pulitzer national reporting award for a series on the television industry.

After Scheer left the Times in 1993, the paper granted him a weekly op-ed column which ran every Tuesday for the next 12 years until it was canceled in 2005. The column now appears in the San Francisco Chronicle and is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate. He is also a contributing editor for the Nation magazine.

Scheer can be heard weekly on the nationally syndicated political analysis radio program "Left, Right & Center" produced at KCRW in Santa Monica and syndicated by Public Radio International.

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scheer approaches the Great Recession from the viewpoint of deregulation and government. The deregulatory mania begins with Reagan here, but it's under Clinton that the biggest damage is done - the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which allowed regular banks (with their federally insured deposits) to take on much riskier investment banking and vice versa, and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which banned the regulation of derivatives. Both these things ended up causing the economy to implode. Obama also has to take some of the blame, for catering to Wall Street as he tried to sop up the mess it had created. Alan Greenspan, Wendy Gramm, Robert Rubin (Clinton's Treasury secretary), Lawrence Summers (Rubin's deputy), and Timothy Geithner (head of the New York Fed) are the villains who insisted on the deregulation of Wall Street (some in order to benefit the corporations they worked for, variously Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Enron), yet Obama brought Summers and Geithner (and other guilty parties) into his administration as the economy was collapsing. The one person who implored politicians to regulate derivatives was Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Clinton era, and she was roundly scorned.

There's not a lot of technical explanation; you won't learn precisely what a collateralized debt obligation is. But Scheer is good on the topic of the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), the revolving door between government and the financial sector, and he properly ridicules some of the adulatory mainstream media reporting on pre-Recession Wall Street and its glorious titans.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Great American Stickup is an exhaustively researched and detailed account of how exactly the economic crash of 2008 came about. Scheer traces the catastrophe's beginning to players in the Reagan administration, its acceleration under the Clinton administration, and the astonishing failure of the Obama administrations to address the causes or the criminal individuals who brought it about.
The story is a complex one-almost like unraveling a Russian novel. The villains who emerge most culpably seem to be the Republican power couple of Phil and Wendy Gramm, Enron's Ken Lay, and Bill Clinton and his evil economic triumvirate of Robert Rubin, Larry Sommers, and Tim Geitner.
I won't even attempt to lay out the chronology here; you'd have to read it and it is pretty shocking. Basically after the Great Depression, laws were put in place to regulate the financial markets and to put a wall between commercial banking and investment banking. Bankers in the 80's and 90's thought they could get rich if these safeguards were removed and bought and paid for politicians let them do it. New investments were invented like derivatives and credit-default swaps and these same guys pushed for non-regulation and oversight of these new markets. When Brooksley Born, Clinton's chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission tried to sound the alarm of dangerous these unregulated markets were, banking execs and their cronies in the Clinton administration went to war against her and destroyed her career. The shit hit the fan and then Bush and Obama put some of these same guys who caused the mess in charge of cleaning it up which they did to their own benefit. The 2008 bail out, Scheer argues, is the greatest robbery in American history.
Scheer, a prominent liberal columnist, surprised me by how unforgiving he was to fellow democrats like Clinton, Rubin, and Obama. His white-hot rage is defended pretty convincingly. Sadly, he concludes that there really is no difference in the two parties with regard to bending over for Wall Street.
My take aways:
The line between government and banking does not really exist; the same people running the banks are at times the same people running Treasury. There is basically a revolving door. In the case of the Gramms, they simply took turns working for the government and working for the private sector, helping each other and tagging each other out/in periodically. These people really are reprehensible.
The super-rich and well-connected can make their own rules in America. It truly is their country and we're only living in it. When Obama finally wised up and pushed for some modest reforms, the banking industry slapped his hand, funded Republicans in 2010 and he learned his lesson. Short of a revolution, it is hard to see any positive change in our future.
When I think about how public employees (like teachers) are pilloried for their "high" salaries and for doing such a bad job, it makes me want to vomit remembering these bankers who ruined the economy and got rich off doing it. Really, there is no prison bad enough for them.

[Piker7977 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow. This was a very condemning recap of the past four presidential administrations and their financial/economic policies. Scheer argues these administrations were infected with flawed free market philosophies that accumulated into the devastating financial meltdown of 2008. This book is also an addition to the woodpile of criticisms about the current president and recycling the likes of Summers and Geithner.

I found this book to be part eulogy for New Deal financial reform and a war cry for the return of Keynesian economic policies with regards to the financial system.

Mr. Scheer has no shortage of villains in his recent history of the financial crisis. The reader rarely encounters a hero in this tale of swindle (Brooksley Born being one of the few) which would arouse my anger and lead me to price Guy Fawkes masks on Amazon.com. The prose of the book is definitely negative and some redundant use of facts and names gets in the way of an otherwise flowing account. The accusations of both Republicans and Democrats make Scheer's version refreshingly non-partisan. I would have like to see more about the rise of the Tea Party but perhaps we will see that in a follow up book.

This is a good introduction to the effects, causes, and outcomes of the financial crisis. The Great American Stickup will benefit those looking for answers about the who, where, when, why and how much? of the recent financial crisis.

[Book Shark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street by Robert Scheer

“The Great American Stickup” is an even-handed book about the conflict of interests of American finances and politicians from Reagan’s presidency to this day. This insightful 304-page book is composed of the following nine chapters: 1. It Was the Economy, Stupid, 2. The High Priestess of the Reagan Revolution, 3. The Clinton Bubble, 4. The Valiant Stand of Brooksley Born, 5. They Have No Shame, 6. Robert Rubin Rakes It In at Citigroup, 7. Poverty Pimps, 8. Goldman Cleans Up, 9. Sucking Up to the Bankers: Crisis Handoff from Bush to Obama.

Positives:
1. Well-written, well-researched book that is accessible to the masses.
2. This is the most even-handed book I’ve read about the causes of the economic disasters of the past 30 years or so. Mr. Scheer does not hold back in placing blame where blame is due.
3. Does not waste time laying out the foundation of this book, “For it was this Wall Street and Democratic Party darling, along with this clique of economist super-friends: - Alan Greenspan, Lawrence Summers, and a few others - who inflated a giant real estate bubble by purposely not regulating the derivatives market, resulting in oceans of money that was poured into bad loans sold as safe investments.”
4. A very good explanation of the financial instruments that became the downfall of the economy: swaps, derivatives, and collaterized debt obligations to name a few.
5. The infuriating scapegoating of borrowers for the economic collapse caused by the lenders.
6. The wisdom of FDR’s New Deal reforms that helped preserve capitalism from its own excesses.
7. The importance of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.
8. The beginning of regulation easing by President Reagan as evidenced by the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982.
9. Senator Gramm’s undeniable legislative marks that opened the floodgates of the abuse of financial power: the Financial Modernization Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.
10. Not to be left behind Mrs. Gramm leaves an indelible mark of her own. Can you say derivatives?
11. Deregulation, deregulation, deregulation…
12. The Weill-Jackson alliance and its impact. And from Jackson’s perspective how it hurt those he intended to help…
13. The heroic efforts of one Brooksley Born who attacked unregulated OTC derivatives.
14. The deals of President Clinton.
15. The three “amigos”: Rubin, Summers and Greenspan.
16. The Enron loophole.
17. The power of lobbyists.
18. Many examples of conflict of interests.
19. Citigroup and the subprime craze.
20. The shocking compensation of the main players involved…good work if you can find it.
21. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in proper context. Excellent explanation.
22. Countrywide and its “connections”.
23. The incentive to “cook the books”.
24. The power of influence, consider the case of Goldman Sachs.
25. Honestly, can we just clone Senator Sanders.
26. Bailout nation!
27. Why it may be too late for President Obama to turn the tide.
28. The harsh yet clear realization that Wall Street runs this country…
29. Comprehensive Notes section with plenty of web links.

Negatives:
1. A bit repetitive.
2. No links to Notes to speak off. A shame.
3. It can be dry at times.
4. Not as engaging as similar books of this topic.

In summary, this was an educational and informative book. The impact of deregulations that were backed by both parties caused enormous damage to our world’s economy. Mr. Scheer does a wonderful job of explaining how, who and when all this happened. He also takes down the myth that financial markets are self-correcting. It’s a very good and I recommend it.

Further suggestions: “Winner-Take All Politics” by Jacob S. Hacker, “Screwed the Undeclared War Against the Middle Class” by Thom Hartmann, “The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America…” by Michael W. Hudson, “Perfectly Legal…” by David Cay Johnston, and “The Looting of America” by Les Leopold.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The following is a book review by one of my fave writers on Keynes, Michael Emmett Brady.

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The first book to demonstrate how completely Obama is controlled by Wall Street

Scheer has done an excellent job in this book in exposing Obama's allegiance to economic, financial, housing, and health care policies that are basically formulated by Wall Street connected economists and policy makers.

The socalled 'reform' legislation that Obama has passed, such as the financial reform package written by Wall Street controlled Democratic politicians like Senator Dodd, Senator Schumer, and Representative Frank, is like a swiss cheese - full of all kinds of loop holes that will allow Wall Street to:

(a) continue creating the financial bubbles that the hedge funds, private equity firms, investment banks and giant commercial banks have been generating since the 1984 period, and

(b) continue the destruction of the American industrial -manufacturing sector througn a libertarian 'free trade' policy that was explicitly rejected by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations in 1776

(See pp. 434-439 of the Modern Library (Cannan Edition) with the foreword by Max Lerner for Smith's obliteration of the 'Free Trade' argument).

The Wall Street attack on Main Street is a two pronged attack emphasizing continued financial speculation and securitization practices based on the increased use of financial derivatives combined with the hollowing out and downsizing of the American industrial manufacturing sector. It emphasizes a speeding up of the current rate of outsourcing of American jobs.

I have subtracted one half of a star due to Scheer's silence about the fact that the Wall Street war on the lower and middle income classes has been extensively discussed by Ross Perot, Patrick Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, Paul O'Neill and other conservatives since the early 1990's. Perhaps a third Party coalition is needed in which Scheer and Nader would join forces with the above mentioned real conservatives to prevent or mitigate the current negative economic trend.

Michael Emmett Brady
Rating: Nine out of Ten

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[Sagar Jethani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Scheer has published a brilliant piece of forensic reporting in "The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street by Mugging Main Street". By peeling back the layers of obfuscation which surround the financial crisis of 2008, he has laid bare the causes of the crisis in a manner which is accessible to the layman.

Scheer describes the origins of the crisis as beginning in the Clinton administration. In order to strike a new accord with Wall Street, Democrats destroyed the regulatory framework which had protected consumers for 70 years. The Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA) rolled back Glass-Steagall, which had drawn a sharp line between depository banks and investment banks. Once this division had been gutted, all banks were free to take high-risk gambles with taxpayer money in the certainty that, should worse come to worse, the government would bail them out. This was followed a year later by laws which exempted derivatives, like collateralized debt obligations from any degree of regulatory scrutiny whatsoever.

The main architects of these laws were none other than Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, his successor, Larry Summers, Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, and a coterie of behind-the-scenes lobbyists from Citibank, Goldman Sachs, and other titans of the banking industry. The revolving door between high government office and high-power banks is particularly disturbing: Rubin, a former Goldman exec, pushed through FSMA as a means of allowing Citibank to merge with Traveler's Group (a disastrous deal that destroyed value). He later left government for a multi-million dollar job with the newly-christened Citigroup whose existence he helped bring about. Rubin didn't stop there. When Citi later realized the extent of the losses it would suffer when its major client, Enron, was found to be conducting fraud on a massive scale, Rubin called his pals in Treasury and asked them to apply pressure to Moody's not to downgrade Enron until Citi had pawned it off on an unsuspecting buyer. When-- a rare moment of civil prudence-- Treasury opted not to get involved, Rubin promptly contacted the credit rating agencies himself to influence their downgrading schedule.

Rubin was succeeded by Larry Summers, whose disdain for any ounce of regulation over the new derivatives market led him to destroy the career of civil servants who warned that such unregulated markets could someday threaten the entire economy. This unholy trinity was completed by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, whose free market fanaticism had its origins in his work with pseudophilosopher Ayn Rand.

Together, this trio of government officials destroyed anyone who objected to their blind faith in the ability of banks to regulate themselves. Scheer tells the story of Brooksley Born, former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Board, and of how her single-handed attempts to inject common-sense into the discussion made her the target of the aforementioned trinity, as well as dozens of their Wall Street lobbyist friends.

Disturbingly, it is these very architects of the financial crisis who Barack Obama turned to upon stepping into his presidency. To Scheer, a lifelong liberal, this represented the ultimate betrayal. Candidate Obama talked a good talk about financial reform. Unlike George W. Bush, Obama seemed to grasp the complex details surrounding the causes of the crisis. When push came to shove, however, Obama sought to reassure the Democratic party's friends in Wall Street that business would continue as usual. Only when public opinion polls show a level of dissatisfaction with his performance will Obama show the rare flash of anger toward the banks, but they have long since learned that he is merely providing red meat to the masses and does not actually intend to back up his words with substantive action.

Scheer has produced what may ultimately prove to be the best summary of the financial crisis in a single, highly-readable volume. Disturbingly, one is left with the irrefutable conclusion that Obama will continue the same love affair between Washington and Wall Street that has spanned several past administration-- be they Democrat or Republican.

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The great virtue of this book is that it names names. Without fear or favor, it shows how advisers in both Republican and Democratic administrations were greedy Wall Street financiers who put their own interests and those of their companies (Goldman Sachs, for instance) ahead of policy and far ahead of people. The defect of the book is the same as its virtue. It focuses on the villains and a couple of heroines (Brooksley Born, Sheila Bair). Surprisingly for a leftist analysis, it doesn't show how all this stuff is traceable to the dynamics of finance capitalism. Putting better people in office won't help. We need to break the back of corporate power, and this book offers not a clue on how to do so.

[Ob-jonny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-written explanation of how the financial crisis came to happen and it explains how guilty the Clinton administration was in encouraging de-regulation. The 3 elements of the cause of the financial crisis were the deregulation or lack of regulation of derivatives, the repeal of the Glass-Steagull act, and allowing banks to increase their leveraging ratio. The first two elements occurred in 1998-2000 and the third was done by the SEC in 2004. These problems need to be fixed in order to have a healthy financial system.

[Orea · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last chapter of this book was difficult to get through because I was so pissed off at Wall Street and all our American politicians in their pockets. Every person who votes should read this book. It is very readable and eye opening.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very good, but very disturbing. All presidents Reagan to Obama, Massachusetts political leaders, and top financial experts mostly all came out looking badly. It was disheartening for politics and the continued financial meltdown in the US and world economies. Scary.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Scheer is by far one of my favorite living reporters. He puts the vast majority of his colleagues to shame in this little poison valentine to deregulation and Wall St. profiteering.

[Michael Hutchison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having lived through this. Having lost my job in 2007 and moved to Florida for another. Sold my house but had to drop the asking price 90K. Having to move to Alaska for another job in 2008. I would say the subject of this book had an effect on me. The public is famous for it's short memory. I would encourage all to read this book. This is part and parcel to how we loose our democracy. Oligarchy government. I was happy to hear Bernie's name a couple of times in the book as a defender of the public and not fooled by the bankers or following the parties. Republican and Democrat administrations guilty. The public suffered. This is still going on today. Banks have too much power and control over government. Government is too willing to sleep with the banks for their personal advantage and enrichment. Again the public suffers.

[Adam Carheden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book to learn how the banks bought the government and had it give them our money.

An excellent and well-researched narrative of the people and events that led up to the 2008 housing crisis and subsequent bank bailouts. It likely oversimplifies the situation and has a somewhat liberal bias, but unless the research presented is outright lies, it's hard to believe that the bad actors the book follows were just naive.

[David Szatkowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is now slightly dated, but relevant none the less. Naturally we all remember the disaster that was the 2008 economic meltdown. This book looks at how both Democrats and Republicans allowed the disaster to happen and why we are certainly moving toward the same kind (if not worse) disaster. Something to read and consider as we examine our current national economy.

[Nat Bond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book clarifies for me a period of financial chicanery that I was oblivious to while it occurred.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the most important topics of the 21st century and Scheer does a good job of identifying some of the primary culprits of this multifaceted disaster.

[Doris Raines · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LOVE THIS BOOK.

[James Granger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should of read this book when it came out. The author manages to document the problems of the 2008 Great Recession while holding those who caused it accountable for creating the mess.

[Ninadiva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about the 2008 Depression. Having read a good number of books about the same crisis and other financial scandals, what I liked most about this one is that it starts all the way back to pre-Clinton and follows the different players and the thinking (or non-thinking) they used to justify their stances and actions. You watch how some are simply trying to have the government step back so they can play "casino" on Wall Street, while others just seem to follow a naive ideology (ie Greenspan) of efficient markets, no taking into account the immoral behavior and often irrational behavior of human beings. One example of this is how it follows Robert Rubin, having been at Goldman-Sachs (as so many other players in the crisis), moves into government and pulls off all of the restraints so that Wall Street can run wild. And almost unbelievably he is pulled into the fix-it team by Obama when he was one of the people who orchestrated the debacle. Another person followed is Brooksley Born, who I hadn't heard of in regards to the crisis. This is because way back in the late 90s she was a government overseer warning that the growing derivatives could become a major problem, but she was pushed aside by the boys club of government and Wall Street financial players. At least there were a few people who were on the right side. A very good read. It was fairly easy to follow the events as they unfolded.

[Sheldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

While some people deride Robert Scheer for continually harping on the banks, he also tends to be right about them and the stranglehold they have on American and world societies. He does not go into much detail about the derivatives that led to the current financial crisis themselves, but rather how they were created and, more importantly, what legislation allowed their creation and trading.

One thing that was particularly refreshing about this book is how he does not favor one end of the political spectrum over the other. He places the blame squarely on the shoulders of both the Republicans AND the Democrats. In fact, he hammers the Clinton administration much more savagely than the Reagan administration. But not without good cause, as is detailed in the book. And he quite rightly expresses his extreme disappointment with the lack of financial reform under the current Obama administration.

Overall, it is a good book to read if you do not know much about how the current financial crisis came into being, and the answers are much simpler and straightforward than most of the financial regulators make it out to be. This book will get your blood boiling and make you want to start taking action to enact real regulatory reform.

[Dave Lefevre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the most fair book I've read so far about the financial collapse chicanery. The collapse of 2008 is not the work of one party as your corporate media might like you to believe. Indeed, there is probably only one party in Washington when it comes to this, and it is a pro-corporate party. There are no heroes in this book except for Brooksley Borne, who was lambasted and scorned for trying to sound the alarm on a system that was running wildly out of control.

This books is also a great antidote for the absolutely outrageous and false comments that are being made this campaign season. It proves that most of the arguments that the GOP candidates (and Obama in some cases) use are ridiculous and were disproven months and years before they were made during this campaign season.

If you still have people that think that the Wall Street moguls are our best and brightest and they deserve what they have been given then try to get them to read this book. Maybe the fact that it lambastes liberals as much as conservatives will get them to listen.

[Meera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scheer effectively demystifies the components of the financial crisis to the lay reader and exposes the problematic "revolving door" of the capitalist fat cats who keep one hand in government and the other managing their bonuses. People like Larry Summers and Robert Rubin, central figures in pushing forth deregulation legislation under Clinton, and who occupied influential positions as Secretary of the Treasury, in between their 'real' jobs at Goldman and Citigroup, firms centrally involved in the financial crisis due to greedy, short-sighted trading practices that ultimately lead to a collapse of the US economy that reverberated throughout the rest of the world. The extent to which Wall Street and the US government were interlinked is unbelievable, and perhaps the most disturbing part is that all of this is not a conspiracy theory, but that all of this went on- and continues to go on- out in the open under Obama's administration. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a simplified explanation of the root causes, figures, and events of the "Great Recession."

[Antonio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered how we got into this mess? Wonder no more. Mr. Scheer does an admirable job chronicling the excesses of the financial markets and the lax regulatory climate that allowed the to flourish. Those contributing to the current financial debacle transcend partisanship or political affiliation: From Reagan's wholesale deregulation of financial markets to Clinton's continuation of same to Obama's reform attempts lead by a cast of characters with built-in conflicts of interest and questionable objectives. Scheer pulls no punches with his exquisite detailing of the list of suspects responsible for the current morass: Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, just to name a few. Along the way, a handful of heroes and heroines emerge -- those who attempted to warn the world of the impending collapse -- whose voices were systematically silenced. This is a whodunit of the highest order, a book that should be required reading for every American wishing to formulate an objective assessment as to why and how the world's greatest economy all but collapsed.

[Lissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Scheer does a great job of tracing the roots of the current financial crisis. He starts during the Reagan administration, but this isn't a book that blames one party or the other. He spends a great deal of time castigating Clinton's cozy relationship with Wall Street, as well. Along the way, the author also draws attention to the few who predicted that deregulation would end in disaster. There's no doubt that it was the makers of the mess who benefited from the bailouts, while those who suffered because of their decisions were allowed to wallow in joblessness and looming foreclosure. It's a very sobering read, especially since, effectively, nothing has changed.

[Derek Postlewaite · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book should be required reading in economics courses. Beyond mere conflicts of interest, financial moguls who've served--and continue to serve--in numerous executive administrations (from Clinton to Bush to Obama) profited exorbitantly through financial deregulation, and yet Madoff is the only big time financial criminal doing time. Should also be on every book shelf, whether red, blue, or purple, and anyone who says it's just the Dems or just the Repubs really needs to grow up and smell the corporatism.

[Guillermo Galvan · Rating 5 out of 5]

You want to know who's ass to kick for the economic nightmare we're all dealing with? Then read "The Great American Stickup." I do admit it's a little hard to follow because there's so many people involved in making this mess, but Scheer does the best he can to make it reader friendly. You'll be surprised who's to blame, I'll give you a hint, EVERYONE! A break down of how greed and revolving door between government and corporations has led to global economic disaster. I only wish most of the dummies screaming and playing the blame-game would finally read this book and shut up.

[Guillermo Galvan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is wondering why the economy is acting as if it just developed a habit of smoking crack. All joking aside, this book gives you a crash course in how Democrat and Republican deregulation led to the global economic meltdown.

It's written in a very straight forward manner but there's a lot of information, so don't expect this to be a walk in the park. But when you think of the alternative, TV pundits, it's worth the extra little effort. Reading this book will make you want to go independent. It's a dirty game.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect political/macro companion to Michael Lewis' excellent "The Big Short", Scheer clearly lays out the regulatory steps (or missteps) that lead to the economic meltdown. The sad thing is that not much has changed since to rein in the floating crap game that is Wall Street and prevent another large-scale economic collapse... and both political parties and their financial masters are to blame.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. I'm not a finance or money person but for those of us (most of my friends thank goodness) who don't talk derivatives and walll street and stocks regularly, I highly reccomend. I think it does a good job of explaining how politics is flush with Wall Street influence and how that influence adversely impacts public policy. It's anti-partisan and equally excoriates Democrats and Republicans.

[Robert Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

For one who has little understanding of how the economy actually works or of how the collapse of 2008 came to be but wants to be more informed, this is a great book that is written so that the previously confused or uninformed can come to understand what happened, how it happened and who was responsible. Warning: Upon reading this book you will at times become full of rage.