Seldom does a Washington lobbyist, lawyer and power-broker write a book. Even less often do I bother reading such a book. But it looks as if I am going to finish Jeff Connaughton's The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins, in record time. It's not a page-turner for the author's writing (middling at best), his great personal charm (none that I can see), his admirable character (maybe, but like most wealthy people, he has some other aspects) or the novelty of the plot (I suspect this crap was going on long before our republic was a gleam in its founders' eyes), but because I find it simply dumbfounding that Wall Street essentially runs unregulated, and has the power to do literally anything it wants. Read it and weep: we are wholly owned. Don't buy the book; I found it at the corner library, and you probably can, too.
