There’s a book about to come out, Bailout Nation, that seems like it is about as nicely timed as Prozac Nation was back in its day. The author is Barry Ritholtz, the proprietor of the highly regarded (and indispensable in this climate) blog the Big Picture. Well, maybe we should say there was a book about to come out. It turns out that the publisher, McGraw-Hill, has a few priorities that rate higher than selling books, and one of them is protecting what’s left of the reputation of its bond-rating subsidiary, Standard & Poor’s (they’re the ones, you’ll remember, who indiscriminately slapped triple-A ratings on many securities that are now known as “toxic assets”).
Ritholtz, in the book, apparently speaks his mind on S&P, and McGraw-Hill didn’t much care for that. After some back-and-forth, they canceled the publication of the book just weeks before it was due in stores. Not a terribly bad deal for Ritholtz, as another publisher is sure to snap it up and take what could’ve been McGraw-Hill’s profits. But it sure does show how unwilling some of the biggest culprits in the credit mess are to cop to what they’ve done.
About Bailout Nation [Big Picture]
Raw Meat: ‘Bailout Nation’ Dropped. War of Words Ensues. [Infectious Greed]
