My Favorite Books of 2010

Each year, the neglected pile by the foot of my desk reminds me that I didn’t read all the books that I wanted to read. But unlike the official ‘best’ lists out there that profess to definitively know THE BEST books without any pile disclaimer, I confess that there are a slew of really great books published in 2010 that I didn’t get through. These are the ones I read and enjoyed:

1) Griftopia by Matt Taibbi

Matt is a friend of mine, whose tenacity, skill and guts I completely admire. But friendship aside, this book contains the kind of biting, in-your-face prose that only Matt can pull off with such incredible finesse, humor and depth. From Greenspan’s obsession with Ayn Rand to the Tea Partiers’ predisposition to shooting themselves and their country in both feet to the Vampire Squid itself, this book is a page turning masterful account of how we got to where we are, and where we’re going.

2) A Question of Values by Morris Berman

This book, penned by a noted historian and bestselling author, was self-published due to the fact that the mainstream publishing houses lacked the ability to conceive that an essay collection, depicting what is culturally and spiritually lacking in our country, could be ‘sell-able.’  This collective oversight by a myopic industry overly concerned with bottom line over qualitative content underscores the essence of the book itself. A Question of Values will make you think and re-evaluate everything you believe.

3) Green Gone Wrong by Heather Rogers

In true old-school reportage style, Heather roamed the globe to determine whether the official, and often corporate promoted, notion of being green (from a product or reduced energy consumption perspective)) isn’t in fact a smokescreen for a deeper systemic issue. By exploring truly energy efficient small towns and getting to the bottom of ethanol production, organic farming methods and other ‘green’ pursuits, Heather’s book shines a light on what we think we know about being green in a penetrating and conversational style.

4) The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

This book, by a first time novelist, is an absolute delight. I was kind of worried given the incredible PR machine behind it, that The Sherlockian might be more of a bandwagon book than the stellar read that it is. But I loved the juxtaposition of the old English darkness of 1900s with the quirky mystery solving abilities of a most extraordinary ‘Irregular’ hero and clever sleuth.  The past and present stories artfully mirror the behaviors of Sherlock Holmes and the writer that gave him life, Arthur Conan Doyle.

5) Super-Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart

This book is the 1984 of our times, depicting a world where conglomerate corporations are even bigger and more dominant than they are in our real world, life and death is more directly dependent on the size of one’s bank account, China couldn’t care less about the strength of the once powerful American empire, and love and relationships are boiled down to a cold statistic. This book is hilarious, insightful and depressing all at once.

6) The Confession by John Grisham

There is nothing more wonderful than a writer that has succeeded professionally so resolutely but still pens books with powerful and important messages. The notion of innocent people getting framed by overzealous prosecutors and entitled judges in a horribly biased justice system is captured poignantly in this book. Grisham, a major fundraiser and advocate for the Innocence Project doesn’t go for the easy happy ending, but instead chooses to keep it sadly stark and heartbreakingly relevant.

7) The Lean Years by Irving Bernstein with a new forward by Francis Fox Piven

This book, with a new forward by noted historian and scholar, Francis Fox Piven, captures the underbelly of the roaring 1920s, a time when the rich were having a blast as the rest of the country was sinking into the Great Depression way before the term was coined. It is as pertinent today as it was when it was first written, even more so, for we are now living in an economy, and with a government, that not only rewards the most powerful, it bails them out on everybody else’s dime.

8) The Investment Answer by Gordon Murray and Dan Goldie

When Gordon first emailed me about his former background at Goldman Sachs (where he worked well before I did and arguably, when the firm had some semblance of an ethical code), he did not tell me that he was dying of brain cancer. It was not until I saw a Fox clip followed by a viral story by the New York Times, that I realized how much a sacrifice he was making to help people learn investment truths. This book is brief and to the point, but its wisdom is a necessity.

9) All the Devils are Here by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera

Even amongst the plethora of books written and yet to be written, including my own, about the 2008 financial crisis that was percolating for years (in particular since Glass Steagall was repealed in 1999) this book stands out. Bethany and Joe weave an evocative narrative that evaluates the character and characters behind the crisis, the human flaws, choices and repercussions perpetrated by a small collection of very dangerous people. the book comes complete with an expansive who’s who and what’s what directory in the front.

10) Capital Offense by Michael Hirsh

In Capital Offense, Michael exposes the true reasons why markets are not actually free-flowing exchanges of capital and information, but rigged by a financial elite for whom neither partisan boundaries, nor Main Street economic realities are barrier to their unrequited power-grab. Hirsh’s skillful, historical analysis shows that the free-market philosophies perpetuated by economists, Treasurers, Fed Chairmen, and Presidents are merely an extension of Wall Street’s drive to supremacy.

11) The Fifteen Biggest Lies about the Economy by Joshua Holland

Joshua‘s book is full of research that provides a framework beyond verbal partisan dueling. It provides data behind the lies that Americans are told, perpetuate and tend to believe, regardless of political affiliation. From Obama being a communist to health care reform working, This book is a terrific primer of solid information in an increasingly sound bitey world in which the political-financial system benefits powerful institutions and megalomaniac leaders by screwing and misleading citizens at every destructive turn.

Some other Greats of 2010: Books on my pile that I didn’t get a chance to read in full. but are excellent include: ECONned by Yves Smith, Fortunes of Change by David Callahan, The Monster by Michael Hudson, No Backing Down by Tameron Keyes, Moving Millions by Jeffery Kaye, The Great American Stickup by Robert Scheer, Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges, The Zeroes by Randall Lane, A Presidency in Peril by Robert Kuttner, and Freefall by Joseph Stiglitz.

Spoke at a Mortgage Fraud Seminar in Ontario,CA - SCARY

Yesterday, several dozen local homeowners, victims of foreclosure frauds of various types, attended a one-day mortgage fraud seminar  at the DoubleTree Hotel in Ontario, CA. It was organized by the nonprofit group, Rhema Economic Research and Development and co-sponsored by Grassroots Assembly. Also, addressing the group was William Black, the Mayor of Ontario, FBI Section Chief of the Financial Crimes Division, Sharon Ormsby, and representatives from HUD and the Department of Real Estate. 

As borrowers who have been through the ringer, predominantly but not exclusively at the hands of Bank of America/Countrywide, audience participation included heartbreaking stories of people who had worked in good faith with their banks or lenders, but in the end faced the unnecessary loss of their homes due to seriously shady foreclosure practices. In some cases, minority homeowners with excellent credit histories were pushed into subprime loans needlessly from the get-go. In others, borrowers entered into loan modification processes during which they were shamefully manipulated by banks succumbing to what Ormsby referred to as the 'dual-track' problem - a bank can and will process a foreclosure faster than it will process a modification consideration, and borrower get stuck fighting against the clock.

After my talk, one elderly woman approached me with an official looking document in hand. It was from a company professing to be able to assist her with her mortgage modification. The document had figures relating to an evaluation of her current mortgage as well as the amount they could reduced her payments by. I told her that no one should trust any modification scheme sent by mass mail. She told me - she doesn't even have a mortgage, her home is entirely paid off.  When she received the letter, she didn't know what she should do, and suggested that other seniors might be scared into doing something they might later regret. 

Another woman told me her tale of modification woe: for nearly two years she had been in a kind of bank suggested mortgage modification trial period. Two years. During that time, she dutifully made monthly mortgage payments that were lower than her original payments as directed. At the end of the period, her bank told her that she would not be approved for a permanent modification, please cough up $80,000 or we will foreclose. (According to the twisted bank logic - though the bank had agreed to lower payments, the fact that the borrower was complying and paying them, meant she was in default for the higher payments, so the second the bank decided to deny the modification, she was screwed.) The bank has already informed her that they are completing foreclosure proceedings on her home. Her story was not unique, several people in the room had uncannily similar circumstances with Bank of America, that ended up in the loss of their homes. That story is repeated millions and millions of times throughout the country.

One courageous woman, who happens to be the president of an investigation company, fought her similar situation to the point of getting California Congress people involved. Every correspondence with her bank was cc'ed to a host a people ranging from the California Attorney General to President Obama. After nearly a year, her bank admitted they had made a mistake.  That's the kind of thing, I told her, that truly pisses me off. Not the fact that she fought back and won, but that so many people can't or don't, and are screwed by their banks - the same banks that got piles of money from the government for the assets they created out of peoples' loans, and on the back of their homes.

The seminar's sponsoring groups are lead by intelligent, passionate fighters who are diligently gathering evidence and information to transform their cases into legal battles they can win, even though it's a tough slog as anyone in the situation knows too well. The women from the FBI, HUD and Real Estate Department all spoke of investigations they were doing into fraud at the initial loan level. But when I asked if any of them knew of a case in which a foreclosure was determined to be fraudulent and the initial loan was also fraudulent (false appraisal, robo-signed, etc) and the end result was retribution for the borrower, all three said it is their job to investigate for fraud, none of their organizations are involved with the kind of retribution that would fix the lives of these victims the way that the Fed, Treasury Dept and two Presidents helped fix the financial lives of their lending institutions.

Health Insurance Mandate - beyond Party Politics

Today's ruling by Virginia's district court Federal Judge, Henry Hudson, that mandating health insurance is unconstitutional was followed by a barrage of school-ground politics, none of which had anything to do with the cost of health care or health insurance for most of the population, including a bulk of the uninsured.

It was heralded by conservatives as a "good day for liberty" gleefully praised by GOP heavies from Senator Orrin Hatch to incoming House Speaker, John Boehner. On the flip-side, it was viewed by progressives as some depressing reminder of Obama's political impotence and duly deflected by the White House as a ruling that won't change the implementation of the mandated aspect of health care law since it won't take effect until 2014. 

Completely lost in all the feather puffing and ruffling was the actual economics of mandated health insurance. Both parties remain blinded by usual bullshit partisanship at the expense of discussing financial realities.  No matter what the political rhetoric or reasoning, mandated health insurance absent insurance premium caps is bad economics for every American that doesn't have a company or a taxpayer footing their complete insurance bill. This is the case whether they consider themselves conservative, progressive or libertarian. Blue Cross Blue Shield, the nation's largest insurance conglomerate, covering 100 million people, does not care how any of them vote, or if they vote at all. Neither does any other insurance company.

Early this fall, I,  and apparently 90 million other Americans covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield received notice that our premiums would be rising by 14% due to the health care reform bill and a litany of other reasons that boiled down to the fact that we're human and haven't died yet. Under that rate of premium hiking, by the time mandated insurance took effect, our premiums would have nearly doubled, with no guarantee that the coverage would remain unaltered, or that the cost of care wouldn't rise in such a way as to ensure that our coverage is less comprehensive for double the price. True, the language of the reform bill ensures coverage of young adults under their parents' plan for longer, but it does not set limits to the cost of their parents plan. The language ensures that insurers can not turn away anyone with a pre-existing condition, butit  doesn't cap the cost of not being turned away.  Absent caps, the Democrats just didn't draft a very good bill, no matter how many grins Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid produced when it passed. 

Equally, GOP leaders, smug in the knowledge that their insurance premiums, no matter how high they rise, are covered by us (as are those of the Dems) are screwing their own constituents. In addition to not suggesting an alternative to mandating insurance coverage for all and thus finding a way for all of us to have coverage, they are not even acknowledging that cost, not constitution, is the real problem.

Meanwhile, insurance companies will keep raising premiums whether health insurance is mandated or not. Why? Because they can, and neither party seems willing to do anything about it - for obvious reasons. They have a win-win situation regardless of mandates. The top ten CEOs of health insurance companies collected $228 million in 2009, up from $85.5 million in 2008, and $1 billion in total over the past decade. Neither party thinks that has anything to do with the high cost of insurance either, or will do anything about it.  The only solution, in the case of health care, is to take that kind of profit motive out of the equation, not feed the beast.