The Payoff by Jeff Connaughton examines a culture of power in our nation’s capital that is slouching toward plutocracy, institutional failure and influence-peddling politics.
Connaughton, a former lawyer in the Clinton White House, illuminates the pivotal moments in the fight for financial reform that have gone largely unreported. His nonpartisan account chronicles the reasons why Wall Street’s worst offenses were left unpunished, why Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force was merely window dressing, why our stock markets are broken, and why it’s likely the 2008 Wall Street-driven debacle will happen again.