The Monster

http://www.renaud-bray.com

http://www.renaud-bray.com

An enraging exposé of the mercenary subprime-mortgage industry and its dealings with Wall Street, which triggered the worst economic crisis since the Great DepressionOrange County, California. Amid the wreckage of the S&L scandal, a group of maverick entrepreneurs hatch a new money-making scheme: writing subprime loans at exorbitant prices and bundling them into securities for eager Wall Street banks.In this stunning narrative, award-winning investigative reporter Michael W. Hudson digs inside the boiler rooms and investment banks that flooded the nation with high-risk, high-profit mortgages. At Ameriquest Mortgage, the nation's largest subprime lender, salesmen sniff out vulnerable homeowners prone to refinancing pitches, and sometimes use Wite-Out to doctor documents. At rival FAMCO, employees memorize The Monster, a high-pressure sales tactic crafted to obscure interest rates—and so unscrupulous that a former used car salesman turned loan officer calls his state attorney general. With support from Washington bureaucrats and Wall Street, subprime grows into a $1.5 trillion behemoth—devastating the lives of millions of homeowners, toppling Lehman Brothers, and wounding the U.S. economy.Provocative and gripping, The Monster lays bare the bottom-feeding fraud and top-down greed that placed the country in financial jeopardy.