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A review by wwatts1734
Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart
5.0
Many people remember the 1980s as the age of Reagan, Iran Contra and Raiders of the Lost Ark. But the decade was also an era of outrageous greed, as exemplified in the movie, "Wall Street". In the book "Den of Thieves", James Stewart describes the web of insider trading and other financial crimes that fueled the great Wall Street expansion of the 1980s. Stewart spends the first half of the book outlining the deals, the relationships and the insider trading networks that netted millions of dollars in illicit gains for the good old boys who traded on this information. Stewart pulls no punches in this book. He takes what could be a very dry and technical subject like the world of high finance, junk bonds and leveraged buyouts and paints a picture of high drama. The men who made this possible, the Ivan Boeskys and the Michael Milkens and the Marty Siegels of the time structured complicated deals and filled each other in on the insider news that each of them could use to trade stocks before the deals actually hit the news. In doing so, the group made a mockery of the American capitalist system, and ironically they helped to destroy the gains that millions of Americans enjoyed in the 80s "go go" market, when the edifice that they built collapsed in a haze of junk bond defaults and leveraged buyouts gone bad.
The second part of the book focused on the era from 1986 to 1990, when the prosecutors and others discovered the staggering web of crime and took it down. As I read this narrative I couldn't help but consider how little concern these men, who led corporations and commanded millions in investors' money, could have so little concern for the every day Joes who would lose as a result of these schemes. While some of the criminals, namely Martin Siegel, were truly remorseful for the crimes that they committed, others could care less. They made their money, they came up with the schemes, so who cares if the sweaty masses would suffer as a result of them. As we look at the financial markets in our own time, I can't help but wonder if this same sort of narcissism is at work in the modern titans of Wall Street. Can capitalism survive if its practitioners see themselves, not as navigators in the vast ocean of finance, but as pirates in search of plunder.
"Den of Thieves", along with "Barbarians at the Gate", should be required reading for all business students in the country. Everyone should consider the events and issues raised by this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who has any interaction or interest at all in Corporate America or Wall Street.
The second part of the book focused on the era from 1986 to 1990, when the prosecutors and others discovered the staggering web of crime and took it down. As I read this narrative I couldn't help but consider how little concern these men, who led corporations and commanded millions in investors' money, could have so little concern for the every day Joes who would lose as a result of these schemes. While some of the criminals, namely Martin Siegel, were truly remorseful for the crimes that they committed, others could care less. They made their money, they came up with the schemes, so who cares if the sweaty masses would suffer as a result of them. As we look at the financial markets in our own time, I can't help but wonder if this same sort of narcissism is at work in the modern titans of Wall Street. Can capitalism survive if its practitioners see themselves, not as navigators in the vast ocean of finance, but as pirates in search of plunder.
"Den of Thieves", along with "Barbarians at the Gate", should be required reading for all business students in the country. Everyone should consider the events and issues raised by this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who has any interaction or interest at all in Corporate America or Wall Street.