ABSTRACT
The famed symbols of the 1980s, the Decade of Greed, ended their Wall Street careers in ignominy and isolation. The energy, excess, and glitz of the Decade of Greed were not confined to the annual Predators' Balls. The defining symbol of the decade was not Michael Milken in prison stripes, but rather the annual Predators' Ball, so ably chronicled by Connie Bruck in her 1988 bestseller. In the third week of March 1984, the faithful, fifteen hundred strong, came to Beverly Hills to pay homage to Michael Milken, the legendary junk-bond guru of Drexel Burnham Lambert whom many of his followers simply called "the King". Milken's genius was to recognize that junk bonds—high yield debt issued by high risk companies—often carried less default risk than their hefty interest rates would suggest. Any unbiased discussion of Milken's impact on the financial world has to begin with an acknowledgment of his very serious contribution to the high-yield debt markets.
