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Her curiosity piqued, Gallagher set out to better understand the role that attention—that is, what we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore—plays in defining the quality of our life. After five years of science reporting, she came away convinced that she was witness to a “grand unified theory” of the mind: Like fingers pointing to the moon, other diverse disciplines from anthropology to education, behavioral economics to family counseling, similarly suggest that the skillful management of attention is the sine qua non of the good life and the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience.
DON DIXON OF “VERMIN” SAVINGS At the time Wright intervened on behalf of Don Dixon, the Bank Board believed that he ran the worst control fraud in the nation, Vernon Savings, known to its regulators as “Vermin.” This was the S&L, described in Chapter 2, that provided prostitutes to Texas S&L commissioner Bowman. Eventually, Charles Keating of Lincoln Savings managed to nip him at the wire for the not-so-coveted title of worst of the control frauds. Dixon personified greed, immorality, incompetence, and audacity. Vernon is also the S&L, as I discussed in my explanation of ADC Ponzis, that made ADC loans with a six-month maturity so that it could maximize income from refinancing. This goosed Vernon’s income stream so mightily that it reported itself to be the most profitable S&L in America. Its (fictitious) earnings were twice the (fictitious) earnings of the second-most profitable S&L (O’Shea 1991, 124). I noted that 96 percent of its ADC loans defaulted. Lest you think it was a victim of the Texas real estate recession, more than 90 percent of the ADC loans it made outside Texas also defaulted. Vernon was an important contributor to the Texas real-estate glut.
The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One
William K. Black
There are also troubling indications that China may hold coercive leverage over the younger Bush. In a 2003 deposition for his divorce, Neil Bush admitted having sex with several women in Thailand and Hong Kong who showed up at his door unannounced in hotels during business trips. This is what is commonly referred to as a “honey trap,” where sex is used to compromise targets, who are usually being surveilled. “Mr. Bush, you have to admit it’s a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her,” his wife’s lawyer said. “It was very unusual,” Bush replied.
Chaos Under Heaven
Josh Rogin
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