Funny Money

Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller: The “grandly entertaining” true story of an oil boom, an Oklahoma City bank, and a chain of crime, corruption, and collapse (Texas Monthly). The Penn Square Bank, located in an Oklahoma City shopping mall, started raking in money in the late 1970s making high-risk loans in the energy industry—and then selling them to other banks. Then came the summer of 1982, when the whole thing collapsed and took a lot of uninsured depositors down with it, as well as causing major losses at financial institutions coast to coast—and eventually sending an executive to jail. In this book, New Yorker writer Mark Singer recounts the whole spectacular story and makes brilliantly (and hilariously) clear what actually happened and why. Funny Money represents both a unique moment in the history of American banking and a timeless tale of frenzied, reckless greed. “[Singer] tells the tale with wonderful verve. He concentrates not on the financial complexities of the catastrophe but on the colorful people involved.” —The New York Times “Superbly researched and clearly written.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer “Witty . . . This is a book that refutes anyone operating on the prejudice that business reporting must be dull.” —The Washington Post