Homewreckers (eBook)

[I] cant recommend this joint enough. ... An illuminating and discomfiting read.Ta-Nehisi Coates"e;Essential reading."e; New York Review of BooksA shocking, heart-wrenching investigation into Americas housing crisis and the modern-day robber barons who are making a fortune off the backs of the disenfranchised working and middle classamong them, Donald Trump and his inner circle. Two years before the housing market collapsed in 2008, Donald Trump looked forward to a crash: I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy, he said. But our future president wasnt alone. While millions of Americans suffered financial loss, tycoons pounced to heartlessly seize thousands of homestheir profiteering made even easier because, as prize-winning investigative reporter Aaron Glantz reveals in Homewreckers, they often used taxpayer moneyand the Obama administrations promise to cover their losses. In Homewreckers, Glantz recounts the transformation of straightforward lending into a morass of slivered and combined mortgage products that could be bought and sold, accompanied by a shift in priorities and a loosening of regulations and laws that made it good business to lend money to those who wouldnt be able to repay. Among the men who laughed their way to the bank: Trump cabinet members Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, Trump pal and confidant Tom Barrack, and billionaire Republican cash cow Steve Schwarzman. Homewreckers also brilliantly weaves together the stories of those most ravaged by the housing crisis. The result is an eye-opening expose of the greed that decimated millions and enriched a gluttonous few.