Confidence Game

Confidence Game is a tale about the dangerous delusions that humbled America's largest financial institutions and plunged the country into recession. Its heart is the story of how hedge fund manager Bill Ackman warned that MBIA Inc., a little-known insurance company, had guaranteed nearly a trillion dollars of debt. Branded a fraud in the financial press, Ackman, a short seller who stood to gain billions from the bankruptcy of the company was investigated by the Eliot Spitzer and by the Securities Exchange Commission. Today, Ackman's warning looks remarkably prescient. The invisible bond insurance business has all but evaporated and so has confidence in the markets.