Infectious Greed (85 page)

of options

Volvo

Vranos, Michael

W. R. Grace

Wachovia

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Wakeham, Lord John

Waldron, Murray

Walker, Richard H.

Wall Street
(film)

Walsh, Brian

Wasserstein, Bruce

Waste Management

Watkins, Sherron

Watson, Charles

Weather derivatives

Weatherstone, Dennis

Welch, Jack F., Jr.

Kidder Peabody and

Whalley, Greg

Wharton School of Business

Wheat, Allen

at Bankers Trust

at CS First Boston

CSFP and

White, Thomas

Whitehead, Edwin

Wilczynski, Melvin

Williams Companies

Winnick, Gary

“Winnick House”

Wood, Judge Kimba

World Bank

WorldCom

board of directors

credit-rating agencies and

IPO

line costs and

manipulation of financial statements

Xerox

Yahoo!

Yeutter, Clayton

Yield curve

Yoon, Jennifer

Young, Judge H. Peter

Yukihusa Fujita

Z-bonds

Zero-coupon Treasury bonds

Zero-margin loans

ZZZZ Best

FRANK PARTNOY is the author of
F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street
and
The Match King: Ivar Krueger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals
. He has worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and as a corporate lawyer, and has testified as an expert before both the United States Senate and House of Representatives. A graduate of Yale Law School, he is the George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance at the University of San Diego.

PublicAffairs is a publishing house founded in 1997. It is a tribute to the standards, values, and flair of three persons who have served as mentors to countless reporters, writers, editors, and book people of all kinds, including me.

 

I. F. STONE, proprietor of
I. F. Stone's Weekly
, combined a commitment to the First Amendment with entrepreneurial zeal and reporting skill and became one of the great independent journalists in American history. At the age of eighty, Izzy published
The Trial of Socrates,
which was a national bestseller. He wrote the book after he taught himself ancient Greek.

 

BENJAMIN C. B RADLEE was for nearly thirty years the charismatic editorial leader of
The Washington Post.
It was Ben who gave the
Post
the range and courage to pursue such historic issues as Watergate. He supported his reporters with a tenacity that made them fearless and it is no accident that so many became authors of influential, best-selling books.

 

ROBERT L. BERNSTEIN, the chief executive of Random House for more than a quarter century, guided one of the nation's premier publishing houses. Bob was personally responsible for many books of political dissent and argument that challenged tyranny around the globe. He is also the founder and longtime chair of Human Rights Watch, one of the most respected human rights organizations in the world.

For fifty years, the banner of Public Affairs Press was carried by its owner Morris B. Schnapper, who published Gandhi, Nasser, Toynbee, Truman, and about 1,500 other authors. In 1983, Schnapper was described by
The Washington Post
as “a redoubtable gadfly.” His legacy will endure in the books to come.

Peter Osnos,
Founder and Editor-at-Large

eISBN : 978-0-786-73355-2

Copyright © 2009 by Frank Partnoy

 

Paperback edition published in 2004 by Holt Paperbacks, Henry Holt and Company, LLC Revised paperback edition published in 2009 in the United States by PublicAffairs™, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

 

All rights reserved.

 

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1321, New York, NY 10107.

 

PublicAffairs books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Partnoy, Frank.

p. cm.

I. Securities fraud—United States. 2. Financial services industry—Corrupt practices—United States. 3. Corporations—United States—Corrupt practices. 4. Corporations—Auditing—United States. 5. Fraud—United States—Prevention. I. Title: How deceit and risk corrupted the financial markets. II. Title.

 

HV6769.P37 2003

338.6'041'0973—dc21 2002040898