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The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History
The Spider Network The Wild Story of a Math Genius a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History Author:David Enrich [Read by Mike Chamberlain] — The Wall Street Journal's award-winning business reporter unveils the bizarre and sinister story of how a math genius named Tom Hayes, a handful of outrageous confederates, and a deeply corrupt banking system ignited one of the greatest financial scandals in history. — In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and ... more »brokers from some of the world's largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor -- the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide -- was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated functionaries, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it to suit their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a wild alliance that among others included a French trader nicknamed ''Gollum''; the broker ''Abbo,'' who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking; a Kazakh chicken farmer turned something short of financial whiz kid; a broker known as ''Village'' (short for ''Village Idiot'') and fascinated with human-animal sex; an executive called ''Clumpy'' because of his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed ''Big Nose.'' Eventually known as the ''Spider Network,'' Hayes's circle generated untold riches -- until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.
The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout, designed to promote envelope-pushing behavior while shielding higher-ups from the consequences of their subordinates' rapacious actions.« less