Origins Of The Crash [Hardcover]

It is quite informative, always entertaining, and Lowenstein's wit and acerbic sense of humor make one chuckle at the outrageousness of some situations.

That said, the book, while descriptive, is not prescriptive: it does not offer much in the way of solutions to the issues so eloquently raised in its pages. It is quite easy, after all, to determine that a hitter swings his bat too wildly to make contact with the ball; it is much harder to tell the batter how to make contact with the ball. Describing the history and culture that gave rise to some of the more egregious practices of the past ten years is certainly informative; however, such descriptions merely contextualize the problem and do little to advance debate on how to overcome such problems.

For example, Lowenstein quite correctly points out that one big cause of the mania for shares was managers' sudden infatuation with hitting quarterly earnings targets...which fascination these managers fixated on because the Street told them that is the yardstick by which they would be judged. So? Good analysis, good explanation that the logic implied in the relationship between managers, their colleagues on the street, and the maniacal focus on hitting earnings targets is self-referential if not outright incestuous. But Lowenstein does not take this argument to the next step: what do we do to cut off such self-referential silliness as that which is described?

That is a discussion he does not approach, and one that neither he nor anyone else seems to have. History, of course, will judge if the corporate reforms as of late, such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the focus on corporate governance will have the desired effect.

Lowenstein weaves a stomach turning tale of rampant dishonesty and criminality; individual, corporate and political greed; the willful failure of law enforcement on the federal level; the blindness created by greed and exposes the myth of the so-called Clinton boom years.

In the end, Lowenstein shows how the Depression-era laws intended to protect the public against stock swindles were simply ignored by the Clinton Administration. Sharp-witted corporate executives learned that they could loot the companies they ran in behalf of the shareholders and the shareholders themselves. The investment bankers learned that they could tout stocks with impunity, no longer having to fear being penalized for lying about the companies they cheered and simply turning a blind eye to accounting arcana and bad news. The accounting and legal professions, supposedly self-policing, dedicated themselves to finding ways to make dung look like gold, even if they couldn't remove the smell. The media, with its legions of financial "reporters" and their dependence on the advertising revenue of the very businesses they reported on, did no fact checking of their own, but simply parrotted the lies they were fed.

And the government? Then President Clinton and legislators simply took the donations of the very people who were fomenting the bubble - and turned a blind eye to enforcing the laws.

Several thousand people grew very, very rich from all this chicanery - while millions lost money, sometimes disastrously so.

Lowenstein describes how it all began with the inflation of stock options awarded to executives. It didn't take long for corporate executives with compliant boards, lawyers and accountants to realize that a seemingly unlimited flow of wealth was waiting to be tapped. The investment bankers and stock analysts saw - as it always has been - how stock prices could be run up without a whit of truth supporting their claims. Buy, buy, buy became the mantra to the public - while the folks on the inside saw profit on every transaction.

Enron and Worldcom were but the largest perpetrators of this sham on the company side, assisted by legions of lawyers who sought loopholes, accountants who looked the other way, stockbrokers who didn't care as long as the public kept buying - and regulators and politicians who lined their own pockets.

It's a sad tale of the Clinton boom. It never was what it was publicized as being - it was a sham and millions of ordinary people are the poorer for it. But not the fat cats in the White House, Congress, the brokers or the others who pulled it off. A few may ultimately go to some country club jail, but they'll be able to afford whatever they want from the commissary.

Jerry