Payback: The Conspiracy to Destroy Michael Milken and His Financial Revolution: Daniel R. Fischel
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Junk-bond pioneer Michael Milken, who was convicted in 1990 of unlawful stock transactions and spent two years in prison, actually committed no crimes at all, contends Fischel, a University of Chicago economist and consultant whose clients have included Milken and other Wall Street figures. The 1980s’ wave of hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts that was spearheaded by Milken made his now defunct firm, Drexel Burnham Lambert, the most profitable investment bank. In Fischel’s provocative analysis, such old-line Wall Street firms as Lazard Freres, Salomon Brothers and Dillon, Read, thirsting for revenge and eager to restore their diminished positions, joined forces with big labor, which feared a massive loss of jobs, to instigate a government-backed witch hunt that scapegoated Milken and other high-rolling investors such as John Mulheren Jr., Boyd Jefferies and Robert Freeman. In ambitious U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani (now NYC mayor), this coalition found an ally who waged an ill-informed, unscrupulous assault on the junk-bond industry, writes Fischel, who contends that the overzealous government redefined routine, even beneficial trading practices as illegal. This is a remarkable, bound-to-be-controversial reappraisal of the so-called financial revolution of the 1980s.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Economist Fischel asserts that Michael Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert were responsible for an enormous sea change in financial innovation on Wall Street that affected countless corporate restructurings and resulted in the creation of vast wealth for U.S. and foreign investors. These are not necessarily bad things unless you happen to have powerful enemies like Rudolph Guiliani who vow to bring you down. In writing an in-depth look at what really happened in the Eighties, Fischel talked with all the participants and studied the court records and government testimony. He feels there was a conspiracy to bring down Milken and Drexel involving Wall Street competitors, U.S. business, and even the government. In this persuasive account, Fischel argues that “the so-called Wall Street and savings & loan scandals of the 1980’s wouldn’t have occurred if the government hadn’t intervened.” Recommended for larger nonfiction collections in public libraries.?Richard Drezen, Washington Post News Research Ctr., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.