Showing titles in Banks & Banking

A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.

As a private banker working for the largest bank in the world, UBS, Bradley Birkenfeld was an expert in Switzerland's shell-game of offshore companies and secret numbered accounts. He wined and dined ultrawealthy clients whose millions of dollars were hidden away from business partners, spouses, and tax authorities. As his client list grew, Birkenfeld lived a life of money, fast cars, and beautiful women, but when he discovered that UBS was planning to betray him, he blew the whistle to the US government. 

Broken Money explores the history of money through the lens of technology. Politics can affect things temporarily and locally, but technology is what drives things forward globally and permanently. The book's goal is for the listener to walk away with a deep understanding of money and monetary history, both in terms of theoretical foundations and in terms of practical implications.

This classic work by Fortune Magazine's Economist of the Century outlines some of Friedman's most famous economic theories about our monetary system. You can hear the Nobel Prize winner and his wife, also an accomplished economist, speak at The Commonwealth Club, about their achievements in the areas of economics and public policy.

This classic expose of the Fed has become one of the best-selling books in its category of all time. Where does money come from? Where does it go? Who makes it? The money magician's secrets are unveiled. Here is a close look at their mirrors and smoke machines, the pulleys, cogs, and wheels that create the grand illusion called money. A boring subject? Just wait. You'll be hooked in five minutes. It reads like a detective story - which it really is, but it's all true.

Listen to what happened next in the follow-up to the best-selling The Wolf of Wall Street, now a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese. In the 1990s Jordan Belfort became one of the most infamous names in American finance: a brilliant, conniving stock chopper. He was the Wolf of Wall Street, whose life of greed, power and excess was so outrageous it could only be true; no-one could make this up! But the day Jordan was arrested and taken away in handcuffs was not the end of the madness. Catching the Wolf of Wall Street tells of what happened next.

Money Games is a riveting tale of one of the most successful buyout deals ever: the acquisition and turnaround of what used to be Korea's largest bank by the American firm Newbridge Capital. Full of intrigue and suspense, this insider's account is told by the chief architect of the deal itself, the celebrated author and private equity investor Weijian Shan. With billions of dollars at stake, and the nation's economic future on the line, Newbridge Capital sought to become the first foreign firm in history to take control of one of Korea's most beloved financial institutions.

As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers? According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, the real answer is all of the above-and more. Many devils helped bring hell to the economy.

Manias, Panics, and Crashes is a scholarly and entertaining account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries. This seventh edition of an investment classic has been thoroughly revised and expanded following the latest crises to hit international markets. Renowned economist Robert Z. Aliber introduces the concept that global financial crises in recent years are not independent events, but symptomatic of an inherent instability in the international system.

Jim Simons is the greatest moneymaker in modern financial history. His record bests those of legendary investors, including Warren Buffett, George Soros and Ray Dalio. Yet Simons and his strategies are shrouded in mystery. The financial industry has long craved a look inside Simons's secretive hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies and veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Gregory Zuckerman delivers the goods. 

New bank failures have been a rude awakening for everyone who believed that the banking industry was reformed after the Global Financial Crisis—and that we'd never again have to choose between massive bailouts and financial havoc. The Bankers' New Clothes uncovers just how little things have changed—and why banks are still so dangerous.

When the news first began to trickle out of China about a new virus in December 2019, risk-averse financial markets were alert to its potential for disruption. Yet they could never have predicted the total economic collapse that would follow in Covid-19's wake, as stock markets fell faster and harder than at any time since 1929, currencies across the world plunged, investors panicked and even gold was sold off.

Eswar Prasad explains the world of finance is at the threshold of major disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states, and indeed all of us. The transformation of money will fundamentally rewrite how ordinary people live. Above all, Prasad foresees the end of physical cash. The driving force won't be phones or credit cards but rather central banks, spurred by the emergence of cryptocurrencies to develop their own, more stable digital currencies.

Stress Test is the story of Tim Geithner’s education in financial crises. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then as President Barack Obama’s secretary of the Treasury, Timothy F. Geithner helped the United States navigate the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, from boom to bust to rescue to recovery.

In March 2021, an obscure financial technology company called Greensill Capital collapsed, going into administration. As it unravelled, a multibillion-dollar scandal emerged that would shake the very foundations of the British political system, drawing in swiss bankers, global CEOs, and world leaders, including former British Prime Minister, David Cameron. At the centre was an Australian financier named Lex Greensill. Pyramid of Lies charts the meteoric rise and spectacular downfall of Greensill and his company.

It is no exaggeration to say that venture capital has been central to the greatest legal creation of wealth anywhere and has enabled much of the world we live in, yet we know surprisingly little about this strange tribe of financiers. In The Power Law, Sebastian Mallaby turns his unprecedented access to the industry's central players into a riveting, character-driven account of venture capital and the world it has made. 

Discretion, secrecy, and subtle strategy were the weapons of choice at Wall Street investment bank Lazard Frères & Co. For more than a century, the mystique and reputation of the "Great Men" who worked there allowed the firm to garner unimaginable profits, social cachet, and outsized influence in the halls of power. But in the mid-1980s, their titanic egos started getting in the way, and the Great Men of Lazard jeopardized all they had built.

Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the world’s most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve; Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England; and former senior Bank for International Settlements managers and officials.

Based on unparalleled access to those involved, and told with compelling pace and drama, The Bank That Lived a Little is the story of one of the most familiar names on the British high street since Big Bang in 1986. Philip Augar describes in detail three decades of boardroom intrigue driven by ruthless ambition, grandiose dreams and a desire for wealth. It is a tale of a struggle for long-term supremacy between rival strategies and their adherents.  

In Dark Towers, award-winning journalist David Enrich reveals the truth about Deutsche Bank and its epic path of devastation. Tracing the bank’s history back to its propping up of a default-prone American developer in the 1880s, helping the Nazis build Auschwitz, and wooing Eastern Bloc authoritarians, he shows how in the 1990s, via a succession of hard-charging executives, Deutsche made a fateful decision to pursue Wall Street riches, often at the expense of ethics and the law.