Stephen Davis is a senior fellow at Harvard Law School’s program on corporate governance. Jon Lukomnik is executive director of the Investor Responsibility Research Center. David Pitt-Watson is the former head of the Hermes shareholder activist funds in Europe and an executive fellow of finance at the London Business School.
". . . the interests of the underlying clients of the finance
industry—the depositors, the workers and the pensioners—should come
first. Everyone is a capitalist these days. That means keeping a
much closer eye on those who manage that capital."—Economist
"A thoughtful, meticulously documented, and downright infuriating
indictment of the American financial services industry."—Nell
Minow, Huffington Post
"This excellent and well written book exposes the multiple leakages
to various agents operating between savers and pensioners and the
companies they are invested in as well as the problems of
collective industry failure. It does not just make clear the
problems and the often perverse incentives in the current system,
but with clear 'takeaways' after each chapter, the authors propose
practical solutions from greater transparency to systemic
regulation, with an outline of what a 'People’s Pension Plan' and a
'Common-Sense Bank' would look like. The book has insights for the
individual investor as well as those in the industry interested in
making the investment process fairer and more responsible."—Sir
Mark Moody-Stuart, former chairman of Royal Dutch Shell
"For those wishing to know what’s right with our financial system
and how it can go wrong—or what’s wrong with it and how it can be
set right, this is the book for you. Its return to common sense and
the basics of finance is refreshing in a world too often
characterized by obfuscation and complexity. Clear, concise,
sensible, and incontrovertible."—Steve Lydenberg, Founder and CEO
of The Investment Integration Project
"This book brilliantly describes what finance is for and shows how
we, the people, who are the ultimate owners, can influence the
system to meet our long-term needs."—Dame Barbara Stocking,
President, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge
"Davis, Lukomnik and Pitt-Watson paint a bleak picture of an
out-of-control financial system that fails to serve the aspirations
of ordinary individuals. Not content simply to identify the
problem, the authors propose creative (principles-based)
solutions. If you care about the role of finance in today’s
economy, read this provocative, compelling book."—David Swensen,
Chief Investment Officer, Yale University
"This fine book provides remarkable insights into what has gone
wrong in our financial institutions and markets. In its call for
action by us—we investors who collectively own corporate
America—the authors offer clear and actionable steps that we can
take to build a corporate world that serves our own interests, not
Wall Street's."—John C. Bogle, founder and former chief, The
Vanguard Group
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