Fooling Some of the People All of the Time

Praise for FOOLING SOME OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIMEThe culture of corporate greed that you depict is one that must be held to account if we are to prevent companies and bad actors from engaging in practices that are harmful, not only to investors, but also to our national economy.-Senator Olympia J. SnoweWhat you will find within the pages of this book will blow you away. This is a tale of deceit, fraud, misrepresentation, cloak-and-dagger antics, millions and millions of wasted taxpayer dollars, and an unbelievable amount of effort expended by Einhorn and others to bring it all to light. . .This book may go down as one of the classic financial forensics books of our time.-Clyde Milton, Seeking AlphaBut the most troubling material concerns an issue that is bigger than Allied and Einhorn's battle: it's the way criticisms of corporate behavior are received in the marketplace. Many, including the SEC, appeared inclined to shoot the messenger.-Bethany McLean, FortuneIn 2002, David Einhorn-one of the country's top investors-was asked at a charity investment conference to share his best investment advice. His response: short sell Allied Capital. At the time, Allied was a leader in the private financing industry with a reputation that had never been questioned. But Einhorn claimed Allied was using murky accounting practices to prop itself up. At the time of the original version of Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, the outcome of his advice was unknown. Now, the story is complete and we know Einhorn was right. He was right again when in 2008 Einhorn advised the same conference to short sell Lehman Brothers. With a new and substantial epilogue, the paperback edition of Fooling Some of the People All of the Time provides a detailed conclusion to the gripping battle between Allied Capital and Einhorn's Greenlight Capital and describes how many parts of the Allied Capital story were replayed in the debate over Lehman Brothers.