Event

Jesse Eisinger with Angie Coiro

Presented by Kepler's Literary Foundation

Friday, November 10, 2017
7:30 p.m.

Kepler's Books
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025

In 2014 the New York Times in collaboration with Pro Publica reported that only one Wall Street banker went to jail for charges related to the 2008 financial collapse. Some publications have offered varying outlooks, but where there is no disagreement is on one issue: no one from any of the major financial firm was held accountable.

Americas biggest banks, its monolithic corporations, its pharmaceutical powerhouses, even its broad-shouldered auto-industry in short, the countrys entire economy made fortunes at the expense of the American people, then made those same people pick up the tab. Wall Street talking heads touted and shouted the phrase Too Big to Fail, they won bail outs, they settled fines, and they heard-out stern reprimands. But no one was arrested.

Angie Coiro sits down with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jesse Eisinger to discuss the history of the financial collapse and his new book The Chickenshit Club. Starting from the 1970s, Eisinger talks about how the Justice Department pioneered the notion that corporate executives, not just seedy crooks, can commit heinous crimes and go to prison, and then proceeded to bungle, avoid, and mismanage the fight to bring the worst corporate criminals of our time to justice.

Kepler's Literary Foundation is a non-profit project of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation dedicated to enriching the community through literary and cultural programs featuring notable writers, artists and original thinkers.