Last month’s “News To Make You Furious” was about For-Profit Prisons, and we recommended a book on “Kids For Cash” scandal in Pennsylvania. We have another link-up for you this month. In the wake of Lanny Breuer’s titular job change we have this book for you explaining why it’s naïve to expect anything better. Just click the link to go to 
the Powell’s Books website and learn more about…
“The Payoff- Why Wall Street Always Wins”
THE PAYOFF examines a culture of power elites in our nation’s capital that is slouching toward plutocracy, an alarming tale of reformers with the best of intentions running headlong into institutional failure and influence-peddling politics. It’s the story of a twenty-month struggle to hold Wall Street executives accountable for securities fraud, to stop stock manipulation by high-frequency traders, and to break up too-big-to-fail megabanks. In this book, we experience a U.S. senator’s vigorous crusade against Wall Street’s irresponsible risk-taking that destabilized the American economy. Through times of triumph and disheartening defeats, rarely witnessed from within our country’s legislative body, we encounter inertia, behind-the-scenes maneuvering, and outright reluctance by the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and the Securities and Exchange Commission to treat Wall Street crimes with the urgency they deserve. Even Robert Khuzami, director of the SECs enforcement division, when asked about federal judges rebuking the SEC for levying paltry fines, said to Kaufman: “I’m not losing any sleep over it.” Meanwhile, the Republican Party remains staunchly opposed to significant financial reform, primarily to wring fundraising dollars from the same Wall Street players who’d raised millions to elect Barack Obama president.
Connaughton, a former lawyer in the Clinton White House, illuminates the pivotal moments and key decisions in the fight for financial reform that have gone largely unreported. His take-no-prisoners, nonpartisan account chronicles the reasons why Wall Street’s worst offenses were left unpunished, why Obamas Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force was merely window dressing, why our stock markets are broken, and why its likely the 2008 Wall Street–driven debacle will happen again.
About the Author
Jeff Connaughton holds an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago and a JD from Stanford Law School. He worked for four years as an investment banker, first at Smith Barney and then at E. F. Hutton. In 1987, he joined Joe Biden’s presidential campaign as Deputy National Finance Director and thereafter became his Special Assistant when Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. After graduating from Stanford, he clerked for Chief Judge Abner Mikva of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, then followed Mikva as his Special Assistant when Mikva was appointed Counsel to President Bill Clinton. In 2000, along with Jack Quinn and Ed Gillespie, Connaughton founded Quinn Gillespie and Associates, one of DCs premier lobbying firms. Now retired from politics, he lives in Savannah, Georgia.
