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Wall Street Versus America: The Rampant Greed and Dishonesty That Imperil Your Investments
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Sales rank 756,357
Customers rating (based on 20 reviews)
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A shocking appraisal that shows how Wall Street is intrinsically corrupt—and what individual investors can do to protect themselves For several years high-profile corporate wrongdoers have been vilified by the media. Yet the problem, according to Gary Weiss, is not just a few isolated instances of malfeasance. The problem is in the very fabric of Wall Street and its practices that enable and even encourage corruption—practices that are so pervasive and so difficult to combat that they are in effect perfect crimes, with the small investor left holding the bag. In this blistering report from the front, Weiss describes how the ethos of Mafia chophouses, boiler rooms, and penny stock peddlers now permeates all of Wall Street. Protected from investor lawsuits by laughably corrupt arbitration systems, Wall Street firms are free to fleece unsuspecting clients with little or no risk. But as this empowering book shows, ordinary investors can fight back and come out on top—if they learn to recognize warning signs, filter media chatter, and spot looming corporate meltdowns in advance. Prepare to be surprised, get angry, and then get even. Wall Street Versus America is a wild ride you can’t afford to miss.
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| Publisher | Portfolio Hardcover | | Release date | 04/2006 | | Availability | | | Edition | Hardcover |
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 some good material here, but also some poorly written screeds
Gary Weiss does best when talking about bucket shops, naked short selling, microcap fraud, and SEC incompetence. He spins compelling stories about larger-then-life criminals and other malefactors, and mocks the regulators who have been so thoroughly captured by Wall Street that they do nothing to oppose them.
The material about actively managed mutual funds and hedge funds was not as good, and almost every chapter is inflated with flowery language and mixed metaphors. See sentences like "The SEC's sterling record of inaction-disguised-as-action reached new heights of splendor in a campaign to put a spit shine on mutual fund governance." This comes a few sentences after Weiss imagines the SEC speaking in stereotypically antebellum black English to its investment bank "massas".
There are also some factual errors, as when Weiss describes "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" as the memoir of Edwin Lefevre. Actually, "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" is a fictional semi-autobiography of Jesse Livingston, not a memoir of anybody, especially not Lefevre
The book is dated; the complaints about Dick Grasso and Bear Stearns seem almost quaint. It is nonetheless useful, as some of the problems discussed in the text have been around for decades and, while they will evolve, many of Weiss's chapters will remain relevant.
I gave this book three points because the discussion of naked short selling and for-pay research are good; the weak material doesn't, for me, drag it any lower than that.
 This is an eye-opener
If you have $100,000, you are not being viewed as a $100,000 client to those on Wall Street. You are viewed maybe as a $2,000 or $3,000-a-year client to your broker or advisor. To you, your money represents hard work over many years. To them, you are just a tool to make them money. Wall Street needs you more than you need them. Without you, they would not exist. If you learn how to invest yourself, you don't need them anymore. They, on the other hand, benefit when you are uneducated about investing.
This book exposes how the business of investing works. It really opens your eyes to the true reality. Wall Street is a place that many associate with getting rich. The authors says,
"Much of Wall Street is built on catering to that fantasy,"
"That's because fortunes are made on Wall Street by catering to your greed. Not a penny is to be made protecting you from Wall Street's greed. That's your job."
I recommend this book to all investors. It is better to get educated than be sorry.
- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market
Great reading!
Gary Weiss' book is absolutely fascinating in the amount of dirt it uncovers and explains. After reading I became quite disillusioned of Wall Street professions and people that hold them. It really opens one's eyes to the amount of smartly disguised corruption and shady practices that Wall Street firms actively employ as part of their 'normal' business under convenient indifference of Securities and Exchange commission.
I would recommend everyone to follow Gary's blog.
4.5 stars-Main Street (production) versus Wall Street (Speculation)
The author has done an excellent job of detailing exactly what the problem is.On the one hand , we have Main Street,which aims at producing real wealth,based on the production of actual goods and services;on the other hand,we have Wall Street,whose main aim is to NOT produce any real goods or services.Wall Street's aim is to manipulate the paper claims to real wealth in such a way that Wall street speculators( the former investment banking houses like Bear Streans , Lehman Brothers ,and Merill Lynch,etc.),can extract a paper profit without the production of real goods and services, by the use of creative accounting,securitization,and leveraged buyouts involving the private equity firms.
Weiss does home in on the problem.The problem is that the United States has not had a truly dedicated SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission)chairman since the years 1971-1973,when Bill Casey made sure that such speculation was snuffed out before it could get started.Every SEC chairman since Casey has been someone who essentially allows the Wall Street speculators to peddle their baloney .Weiss does an especially good job in exposing the pathetic tenure of Authur Levitt,who was SEC chairman during the Clinton-Gore years.There was,at best,minimal to no regulation during all 8 years from 1993-2000.The Wall Street speculators built up steam during the Clinton years.Both secretaries of the Treasury,Rubin and Summers,helped create the speculative economy that has now collapsed.
I have deducted one half of a star because there is no discussion of the work of Adam Smith ,J M Keynes, or Kindleberger.All three wrote important works which identified exactly what the problem was-speculation financed and engaged in by the private commercial banking industry and investment banks.Adam Smith 's ancient wisdom identified the problem back in 1776.Smith had an excellent understanding of the causes of the Mississippi and South Sea Island bubbles that ravaged the world back in the 1719-1721 time period.The banking industry and financial services sector must be very heavily regulated so that it is prevented from wasting and destroying the savings of its depositors by loaning out money to prodigals,imprudent risk takers,amd projectors[Keynes's speculators and rentiers from chapter 12 of the General Theory(1936)].Smith's advice is direct and all one needs to know.The fact that Smith's very straightforward advice is not followed means that people refuse to learn from history the fact that every speculative bubble in the past has deflated,bringing with it recsssion or depression paid for by the middle and lower income classes.
This book is outdated based on 2008 and Wall Street
Since the great collapse of wealth in this country and around the world in the last year and having gone through two "bubbles" in less than 10 years (internet and housing) I was hoping to learn more about how Wall Street works. Although Weiss has a dry sense of humor about the tragedy we are all undergoing, he only foucuses on a few aspects of Wall Street..mutual funds, short selling, hedge funds, Grasso's pay and a fleeting moment on the internet bubble. Fast forward to 2008 where we have been choked to death by the underbelly of Wall Street and the big financial institutons, this book is basically outdated. Surley he understood the corruption withing the large Wall Street financial banks yet other than the sidebar about Randy Groves loosing to Merrill Lynch...ok this is where I get a bit confused, what part of the TARP are they hidding under? As Warren Buffet says, "you will know who is swimming naked when the tide goes out." The tide is out and we almost know who is swimming naked and then Madoof actually was going around pulling the suits off of people. It is really hard to keep up and learn how Wall Street is screwing main street. Have to wait for the next shoe to drop. One good thing about the book is his description of short selling using the borrow a book from the library analogy. Now that I got. The rest is obvious and history.
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