Charles Ferguson's new book "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America" is a well written, scathing critique that exposes the crooked underside of corporate America.Ferguson doesn't exactly come across as a radical. He's a former executive and government adviser who spent enough time in academia to obtain a Ph.D in political science from M.I.T. The background he brings to his research makes his damning criticisms of financial industry practices all the more compelling. He could go further but given his background and perspective this might be an unreasonable expectation.He also directed the documentary "Inside Job" - in his words a film about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption."At the 2011 Oscars "Inside Job" won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.A deeply troubling aspect of the financial crisis was the horrendous fall-out that impacted everyday people across America, but equally startling was the lack of legal consequences for bad corporate actors. In his acceptance speech at the Academy, Ferguson said in part: "Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong."In "Predator Nation" Ferguson exposes the fraud and shady practices that lie at the heart of the financial industry. He does so as someone intimately familiar with the inner workings of the system.Random House lists some of the key areas covered in the book:* The financial sector has become increasingly criminalized, with the widespread fraud that caused the housing bubble going completely unpunished.

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