Presents an overview of greed as it has evolved through the ages, with advice on how to detect fraud and the complaint that regulation only protects consumers from yesterday's schemes In his new book, History of Greed, noted financial fraud expert David E.Y. Sarna posits that the major scandals that came to light in 2008, like most of those in the last two hundred years are just the superficial manifestations of a system that, at its core, is based on fraud, greed and dishonesty. Foreword. Acknowledgments. Introduction. Chapter 1 Selling Air. Why Now? Chapter 2 Crash Postmortem. How Greed, Hubris, and Lack of Supervision Did Investors In. Chapter 3 Why We Do It. Bubbles and Fraud. Chapter 4 Securities Fraud. Its Long and Storied Past. Chapter 5 The Perils of Greed. It s All for the Easy Money. Chapter 6 The Elements of Financial Fraud. A Case Study with Crazy Eddie Antar. Chapter 7 Other People s Money. The O.P.M. Leasing Fraud. Chapter 8 Smaller Company Fraud. The ISC Story. Chapter 9 Selling Long and Short. But Mostly Short. Chapter 10 Market Manipulation. Improper Short Selling and Other Abuses. Chapter 11 PIPEs. Investing Unfairly. Chapter 12 Promotion Fraud. Pump and Dump. Chapter 13 Leaks, Front Running, and Insider Trading. Test Yourself. Chapter 14 Fictitious Volume. A Pump and Dump Scam with Intrigue. Chapter 15 Parachute into Prison. U.S. v. Schrenker. Chapter 16 Affi nity Group Fraud. Scamming Your Own Community. Chapter 17 Twentieth Century Ponzi Schemes. Larger and Longer Lasting Scams. Chapter 18 Hit Charade. Lou Pearlman. Chapter 19 Hedge Fund Ponzi Fraud. Hedge Funds Are for Big Boys. Chapter 20 Madoff and the World s Largest Ponzi Scheme. The Mother of All Ponzi Schemes. Chapter 21 How Madoff Got Away with It. Who Helped Plot in the Mother of All Ponzi Schemes; Who Can Be Made to Pay? Chapter 22 Madoff Plea and Its Aftermath. Governments Go after Merkin, Kohn, and Maybe Others in the Mother of All Ponzi Schemes. Chapter 23 Mopping up after Madoff. Lawyers Feast on Madoff Feeders in the Mother of All Ponzi Schemes. Chapter 24 Other Recent Ponzi Schemes. Madoff was a Crook but He Had No Monopoly on Recent Ponzi Schemes. Chapter 25 Stanford Group. Massive $7 Billion, Multinational Fraud Comes to Light. Chapter 26 Ultimate Chutzpah. The Strange Tale of Marc Dreier, Esq. Chapter 27 Detecting Fraudulent Financial Schemes. How Much to Regulate? How Much to Verify? Chapter 28 Fraudulent Offerings. A Short Look. Chapter 29 Auction Rate Securities A $330 Billion Fraud? Chapter 30 $132 Million Tax Free Exchange Fraud. Section 1031. Chapter 31 Not Smart. The Smart Online Trading Scam. Chapter 32 Boiler Rooms. Where the Heat Rises. Chapter 33 Accounting Frauds. With Examples. Chapter 34 Stock Option Frauds. Alchemy That Benefi ts Insiders. Chapter 35 Odd and Unusual Financial Frauds. Not Your Everyday Fraud. Afterword: What Does the Future Hold? Notes. About the Author. Further Reading. Index.