This is an ugly and depressing story, but worth reading. It leaves me pretty cynical about who’s likely to get ahead in the current crisis.
Homewreckers, Aaron Glantz’s recent book about the investors who exploited the 2008 financial crisis, is essential reading as we plunge headlong into a new financial catastrophe. Glantz observes that there are two ways a government can respond to a crisis caused by reckless speculation: by stepping in or by stepping aside. During the Great Depression Roosevelt stepped in; Ronald Reagan, dealing with the savings-and-loan crisis, stepped aside. The George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, alas, hewed closer to Reagan’s example.