Staff Picks
Bad Business: Corruption, Scams, and Scandals
- Chantal W.
- Sunday, March 01, 2020
Collection
Check out these audiobooks, books and DVDs about some of the biggest business scams of our time.
Enron the Smartest Guys in the Room
Published in 2005
Chronicles the rise of Enron Corporation and its disintegration following scandal. Examines the morality of corporate philosophy. Focuses on key Enron executives Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andy Fastow.
Inside Job
Published in 2011
An analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which, at a cost of over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, traced is the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. Narrated by Matt Damon.
The Wolf of Wall Street
Published in 2007
-- Boiler Room, From the stormy relationship Belfort shared with his model-wife as they ran a madcap household that included two young children, a full-time staff of twenty-two, a pair of bodyguards, and hidden cameras everywhere—even as the SEC and FBI zeroed in on them—to the unbridled hedonism of his office life, here is the extraordinary story of an ordinary guy who went from hustling Italian ices at sixteen to making hundreds of millions. Until it all came crashing down . . . -- —Forbes “A cross between Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities “Entertaining as pulp fiction, real as a federal indictment . . . a hell of a read.”—Kirkus Reviews From the Hardcover edition.
American Kingpin
The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road
Published in 2017
From New York Times-bestselling author Nick Bilton comes a true-life thriller about the rise and fall of Ross Ulbricht, aka the Dread Pirate Roberts, the founder of the online black market Silk Road.
Fatal Risk
A Cautionary Tale of AIG's Corporate Suicide
Published in 2011
"The true story of how risk destroys, as told through the ongoing saga of AIG. From the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the subject of the financial crisis has been well covered. However, the story central to the crisis-that of AIG-has until now remained largely untold. Fatal Risk: A Cautionary Tale of AIG's Corporate Suicide tells the inside story of what really went on inside AIG that caused it to choke on risk and nearly bringing down the entire economic system. The book reveals inside information available nowhere else, including the personal notes and records of key players such as the former Chairman of AIG, Hank Greenberg. Takes readers behind the scenes at the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Details how an understanding of risk built AIG, but a disdain for government regulators led to a run-in with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Fatal Risk is the comprehensive and compelling true story of the company at the center of the financial storm and how it nearly caused the entire economic system to collapse."-- Provided by publisher.
Red Notice
A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Published in 2015
"A real-life political thriller about an American financier in the Wild East of Russia, the murder of his principled young tax attorney, and his dangerous mission to expose the Kremlin's corruption"--Amazon.com.
Barbarians at the Gate
[the Fall of RJR Nabisco]
Published in 2007
A riveting account of the largest corporate takeover in American history -- the $25 billion battle for control of RJR Nabisco--featuring an updated introduction. From brazen displays of ego to power struggles in bedrooms and boardrooms, this real-life drama exposes the feeding frenzy of business sharks on Wall Street.
Bad Blood
Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Published in 2018
"The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of Theranos--the Enron of Silicon Valley--by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of pressure and threats from the CEO and her lawyers. In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup "unicorn" promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in an early fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes's worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: the technology didn't work. For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at the Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company's value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley"-- Provided by publisher.
Hack Attack
The Inside Story of How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch
Published in 2014
"The definitive book on how the News of the World phone-hacking scandal reached the highest echelons of power in the government, security, and the media in the UK, from the journalist who broke the story"-- Provided by publisher.
Circle of Greed
The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to Its Knees
Published in 2010
The Spider Network
Published in 2017
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 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.
The Wizard of Lies
Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust
Published in 2011
Examines the life, career, and notorious multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme of the formerly prominent New York financier, as well as the tragic consequences of his criminal activity.
Black Edge
Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street
Published in 2017
"Steven A. Cohen is a Wall Street legend. Born into a middle class family in a decidedly upper class suburb on Long Island, he was unpopular in high school and unlucky with girls. Then he went off to Wharton, and in 1992 launched the hedge fund SAC Capital, which grew into a $15 billion empire. He cultivated an air of mystery and reclusiveness -- at one point, owned the copyright to almost every picture taken of him -- and also of extreme excess, building a 35,000 square foot house in Greenwich, flying to work by helicopter, and amassing one of the largest private art collections in the world. But on Wall Street, he was revered as a genius: one of the greatest traders who ever lived. That public image was shattered when SAC Capital became the target of a sprawling, seven-year criminal and SEC investigation, the largest in Wall Street history, led by an undermanned but determined group of government agents, prosecutors, and investigators. Experts in finding and using "black edge" (inside information), SAC Capital was ultimately fined nearly $2 billion -- the largest penalty in history -- and shut down. But as Sheelah Kolhatkar shows, Steven Cohen was never actually put out of business. He was allowed to keep trading his own money (in 2015, he made $350 million), and can start a new hedge fund in only a few years. Though eight SAC employees were convicted or pleaded guilty to insider trading, Cohen himself walked away a free man. Black Edge is a riveting, true-life thriller that raises an urgent and troubling question: Are Wall Street titans like Steven Cohen above the law?"-- Provided by publisher.
Three Cups of Deceit
How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way
Published in 2011
Argues that author and humanitarian Greg Mortenson, noted for his campaign to open schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has not been truthful about his past, his reasons for opening schools, or his abduction by the Taliban.
The Big Short
Inside the Doomsday Machine
Published in 2010
The author of the signature bestseller Liar's Poker explains how the event we were told was impossible--the free fall of the American economy--finally occurred; how the things that we wanted, like ridiculously easy money and greatly expanded home ownership, were vehicles for that crash; and how shareholder demand for profit forced investment executives to eat the forbidden fruit of toxic derivatives.
Filthy Rich
A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal That Undid Him, and All the Justice That Money Can Buy
Published in 2016
Too Big to Fail [the Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis--and Themselves]
Published in 2009
"Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true behind-the-scenes account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea and Russia and the corridors of Washington, this is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego and greed, and ultimately, the fate of the world's economy"--Container.
The Fix
How Bankers Lied, Cheated and Colluded to Rig the World's Most Important Number
Published in 2017