Busting the Bankers' Club

"This is an eye-opening, must-read blockbuster of a book showing how banks' money and power corrupts Washington and our financial system. Compellingly and insightfully connecting the dots, Gerald Epstein details how the bankers' club is also a literal club, beating down opposition and hardworking Americans, and concludes with a visionary plan for how the system can be changed to benefit all Americans."—Dennis M. Kelleher, President and CEO, Better Markets

"Busting the Bankers' Club reminds us that the United States has still not fixed the weaknesses in its banking system to prevent financial meltdowns. Epstein exposes why the fault lines are still there and what we can do to prepare for the next disaster when no amount of regulation is sufficient."—Jennifer Taub, author of Big Dirty Money and host of the podcast Booked Up with Jen Taub

"An essential guide to all that's gone so deeply wrong in the US financial sector. 'Roaring finance' has destroyed the economy and upended the lives of working people (and too often distorted the priorities of those who represent them). A 'bankers' club' now threatens democracy by amplifying the power of Wall Street. Epstein offers a concrete road map for bold yet achievable strategies to reclaim finance for the social good."—Ilene Grabel, author of When Things Don’t Fall Apart: Global Financial Governance and Developmental Finance in an Age of Productive Incoherence

"Busting the Bankers’ Club is a revealing look behind the curtain of the banking industry’s various crises and failures. Instead of focusing on the policies or practices that lead to such disparate economic outcomes in our economy, Epstein hones in on the network of people, from bankers to lobbyists to academic economists, who tightly control the credit and capital structure that rightfully belongs to the people. Epstein’s account correctly identifies an often-overlooked source of unfairness and also points the way forward through a more democratic and just banking system run for and on behalf of the people. This book is a must-read for students of finance and activists alike, written by a foremost scholar in the field. The book is timely, necessary, and enlightening."—Mehrsa Baradaran, Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine

"Gerald Epstein's Busting the Bankers' Club is an indispensable guide to how the financial elite made banking a self-serving and unstable cartel, and how to turn banking back into the servant of the real economy rather than the master."—Robert Kuttner, coeditor of The American Prospect and Professor of Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University

"Read this book before the bankers get it banned. In lucid and accessible prose, Epstein tells us what’s wrong with the bankers’ club and what should be done to bust it apart and build finance that works for the rest of us."—Fred Block, Research Professor of Sociology, University of California, Davis