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The Asylum
- The Renegades Who Hijacked the World's Oil Market
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
They were a band of outsiders unable to get jobs with New York's gilded financial establishment. They would go on to corner the world's multitrillion-dollar oil market, reaping unimaginable riches while bringing the economy to its knees.
Meet the self-anointed kings of the New York Mercantile Exchange. In some ways, they are everything you would expect them to be: a secretive, members-only club of men and women who live lavish lifestyles; cavort with politicians, strippers, and celebrities; and blissfully jacked up oil prices to nearly $150 a barrel while profiting off the misery of the working class. In other ways, they are nothing you can imagine: many come from working-class families themselves. The progeny of Jewish, Irish, and Italian immigrants who escaped war-torn Europe, they take pride in flagrantly spurning Wall Street.
Under the thumb of an all-powerful international oil cartel, the energy market had long eluded the grasp of America's hungry capitalists. Neither the oil royalty of Houston nor the titans of Wall Street had ever succeeded in fully wresting away control. But facing extinction, the rough-and-tumble traders of Nymex - led by the reluctant son of a produce merchant - went after this Goliath and won, creating the world's first free oil market and minting billions in the process. Their stunning journey from poverty to prosperity belies the brutal and violent history that is their legacy.
For the first time, The Asylum unmasks the oil market's self-described "inmates" in all their unscripted and dysfunctional glory: the happily married father from Long Island whose lust for money and power was exceeded only by his taste for cruel pranks; the Italian kung fu-fighting gasoline trader whose ferocity in the trading pits earned him countless millions; the cheerful Nazi hunter who traded quietly by day Irish-born femme fatale who outsmarted all but one of the exchange's chairmen - the Hungarian emigre who, try as he might, could do nothing to rein in the oil market's unruly inhabitants.
From the treacherous boardroom schemes to the hookers and blow of the trading pits; from the repeat terrorist attacks and FBI stings to the grand alliances and outrageous fortunes that brought the global economy to the brink, The Asylum ventures deep into the belly of the beast, revealing how raw ambition and the endless quest for wealth can change the very nature of both man and market.
Showcasing seven years of research and hundreds of hours of interviews, Leah McGrath Goodman reveals what really happened behind the scenes as oil prices topped out and what choice the traders ultimately made when forced to choose between their longtime brotherhood and their precious oil monopoly.
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Story
Red Notice is a searing expose of the wholesale whitewash by Russian authorities of Magnitsky's imprisonment and murder, slicing deep into the shadowy heart of the Kremlin to uncover its sordid truths.
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This is an absolute "YES" as your next read/listen
- By William on 02-07-15
By: Bill Browder
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The Futures
- The Rise of the Speculator and the Origins of the World's Biggest Markets
- By: Emily Lambert
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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In The Futures, Emily Lambert, senior writer at Forbes magazine, tells us the rich and dramatic history of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, which together comprised the original, most bustling futures market in the world. She details the emergence of the futures business as a kind of meeting place for gamblers and farmers and its subsequent transformation into a sophisticated electronic market where contracts are traded at lightning-fast speeds.
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Great concept, but falls short
- By Philo on 10-21-11
By: Emily Lambert
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The Zeroes
- My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane
- By: Randall Lane
- Narrated by: Randall Lane
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Magazine entrepreneur Randall Lane had a prime seat at Wall Street's biggest greed fest. The Zeroes is a memoir about the excesses and bad behavior of an outsider who got pulled into a crazy, self-contained world.
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A very entertaining tale
- By andy on 11-03-13
By: Randall Lane
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Conspiracy of Fools
- A True Story
- By: Kurt Eichenwald
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 30 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Say the name 'Enron' and most people believe they've heard all about the story that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. But in the hands of Kurt Eichenwald, the players we think we know and the business practices we think have been exposed are transformed into entirely new, and entirely gripping, material.
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Great Story
- By Adam M Pokorski on 06-06-06
By: Kurt Eichenwald
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The Oligarchs
- Wealth and Power in the New Russia
- By: David Hoffman
- Narrated by: Steve Coulter
- Length: 22 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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A brilliant investigative narrative: How six average Soviet men rose to the pinnacle of Russia's battered economy. David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for
The Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals.
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Supreme Chronicle of Murky Times
- By ivan on 03-01-14
By: David Hoffman
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Good for the Money
- My Fight to Pay Back America
- By: Bob Benmosche
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 2009, at the peak of the financial crisis, AIG - the American insurance behemoth - was sinking fast. It was the peg upon which the nation hung its ire and resentment during the financial crisis: the pinnacle of Wall Street arrogance and greed. When Bob Benmosche climbed aboard as CEO, it was widely assumed that he would go down with his ship. In mere months, he turned things around, pulling AIG from the brink of financial collapse and restoring its profitability.
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Worthwhile, informative, and just short of inspiring
- By Preston on 11-17-21
By: Bob Benmosche
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Bad Paper
- Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld
- By: Jake Halpern
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Jake Halpern introduces us to a former banking executive and a former armed robber who become partners and go in quest of "paper" - the uncollected debts that are sold off by banks for pennies on the dollar. As Halpern shows, the world of consumer debt collection is a wild and unregulated shadow land, where operators may misrepresent a debtor's situation, make illegal threats, and even lay claim to debts that are not theirs to collect in the first place.
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An Examination of Bad Debts; its Buyers & Sellers
- By Darwin8u on 08-22-16
By: Jake Halpern
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The King of Content
- Sumner Redstone’s Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire
- By: Keach Hagey
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Sumner Murray Redstone, once feared as the “mad genius” of media who would dump his CEOs for mere wobbles in his companies’ stock price, had built one of the world’s greatest media empires through a series of audacious takeovers constructed to ensure that he always maintained control. Today he controls 80 percent of the voting shares of both Viacom and CBS, meaning that on a whim he could replace the entire boards of two public companies with a combined value of $40 billion.
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Feels biased. Well researched, but not engaging.
- By Anonymous User on 04-03-19
By: Keach Hagey
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Street Freak
- Money and Madness at Lehman Brothers
- By: Jared Dillian
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When Jared Dillian joined Lehman Brothers in 2001, he fulfilled a life-long dream to make it on Wall Street - but he had no idea how close to the edge the job would take him. Like Michael Lewis' classic Liar's Poker, Jared Dillian's Street Freak takes listeners behind the scenes of the legendary Lehman Brothers, exposing its outrageous and often hilarious corporate culture.
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Performance overwrought, drama swamps meaning
- By Philo on 02-10-17
By: Jared Dillian
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The Big Rich
- The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes
- By: Bryan Burrough
- Narrated by: James Jenner
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Best-selling author Bryan Burrough reveals how four Texas oil tycoons transformed America. Rising from humble beginnings through hard work and shrewd dealings, they shifted the balance of power in American politics. While hobnobbing with movie stars and presidents, the Big Rich also created the legend of the swaggering Texas oilman with island hideaways and sprawling ranches.
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Big, Sordid, Fascinating, PoliticallyCorrect
- By Darkcoffee on 11-09-09
By: Bryan Burrough
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The Frackers
- The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters
- By: Gregory Zuckerman
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Everyone knew it was crazy to try to extract oil and natural gas buried in shale rock deep below the ground. Everyone, that is, except a few reckless wildcatters - who risked their careers to prove the world wrong. Things looked grim for American energy in 2006. Oil production was in steep decline and natural gas was hard to find. The Iraq War threatened the nation’s already tenuous relations with the Middle East. China was rapidly industrializing and competing for resources.
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Balanced approach on controversial topic
- By Chris on 01-02-14
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The Lost Bank
- The Story of Washington Mutual - The Biggest Bank Failure in American History
- By: Kirsten Grind
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
During the most dizzying days of the financial crisis, Washington Mutual, a bank with hundreds of billions of dollars in its coffers, suffered a crippling bank run. The story of its final, brutal collapse in the autumn of 2008, and its controversial sale to JPMorgan Chase, is an astonishing account of how one bank lost itself to greed and mismanagement, and how the entire financial industry - and even the entire country - lost its way as well. Kirsten Grind’s The Lost Bank is a magisterial and gripping account of these events.
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Sad and Angry by Turn
- By Johnnie Walker on 07-24-12
By: Kirsten Grind
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Sellout
- How Washington Gave Away America's Technological Soul, and One Man's Fight to Bring It Home
- By: Victoria Bruce
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
American technological prowess used to be unrivaled. But because of globalization, and with the blessing of the US government, once proprietary materials, components, and technologies are increasingly commercialized outside the United States. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in China's monopoly of rare earth elements - materials that are essential for nearly all modern consumer goods, gadgets, and weapons systems.
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Uncovering unsung heroes of modern America
- By Ben DeNardo on 08-24-17
By: Victoria Bruce