A review by miguelf
Big Dirty Money: The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime by Jennifer Taub

4.0

There’s a simple statistic at the beginning of this book that “White Collar” crime costs victims between $300B to $800B per year, dwarfing all other street level crime. And yet Americans arm themselves to the teeth apparently to protect themselves for the latter, while not giving too much care for the former. In this book Taub outlines many instances of this type of crime mainly at the corporate level and outlines six key recommendations intended to combat this. The book itself is a bit like one that she references (Jesse Eisinger’s “The Chickenshit Club”) in documenting both many instances of corporate malfeasance and listing the many reasons that they are not being actively prosecuted. Like that book, it’s quite interesting but not necessarily what one would describe as a page turner. That’s a bit sad considering the negative effect this has on our lives. The recommendations given are admirable, but as Taub says the fact that these are viewed as victimless crimes will continue to hamper having these needed fixes becoming implemented.