American Sucker

In early 2000 the bottom dropped out of the life of writer David Denby when his wife decided to leave him. Propelled to make some money quickly, and seized by the 'irrational exuberance' of the stock market, then approaching its peak, Denby enthusiastically joined the investment frenzy. Over the next few months he listened raptly to bullish stock analysts, dreamy hi-tech gurus and boastful heads of companies. He plunged into a season of mania and was swept forward on currents of hope, greed and hucksterism - with cataclysmic results. American Sucker is a mesmerising account of those years of madness. What begins as a money chase and an engagement with rampant capitalism soon becomes an encounter with such timeless issues as love, envy, true value - and life and death itself. This is a classic tale of the bubble related not by a market guru or an investment professional but by a witty, perceptive and eloquent outsider.

Financial illiteracy is the #1 economic crisis in the world, impacting more than 5 billion people across the planet. The few who know how money works take advantage of those who do not - the suckers. This book is designed to help you break the cycle of endless debt, foolish spending and financial cluelessness so you can stop being a sucker, start being a student and take control of your financial future.

Working as an unlicensed private investigator, Cal Innes accompanies an amateur boxer to his first major tournament in Los Angeles, but his simple job soon turns deadly, thanks to rumors of a rigged bout, and the boxer's temper and codeine habit.

A comprehensive history of fraud in America, from the early nineteenth century to the subprime mortgage crisis In America, fraud has always been a key feature of business, and the national worship of entrepreneurial freedom complicates the task of distinguishing salesmanship from deceit. In this sweeping narrative, Edward Balleisen traces the history of fraud in America—and the evolving efforts to combat it—from the age of P. T. Barnum through the eras of Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff. This unprecedented account describes the slow, piecemeal construction of modern institutions to protect consumers and investors—from the Gilded Age through the New Deal and the Great Society. It concludes with the more recent era of deregulation, which has brought with it a spate of costly frauds, including corporate accounting scandals and the mortgage-marketing debacle. By tracing how Americans have struggled to foster a vibrant economy without encouraging a corrosive level of cheating, Fraud reminds us that American capitalism rests on an uneasy foundation of social trust.

A hardened ex-cop, Tony Valentine now nabs hustlers who rob casinos, and the Micanopy Indian Reservation Casino in South Florida desperately needs his expertise. A blackjack dealer has rigged a game, dealt a player eighty-four winning hands in a row, and then disappeared. But the missing dealer is part of an even bigger, far deadlier scheme. Valentine’s trail leads him to Rico Blanco, a ruthless gangster who once worked for John Gotti; his shady, elusive partner-in-crime, Victor Marks; and a bombshell named Candy Hart, a hooker with dreams of love—a combination tailor-made to double-cross. It appears they have a con going down involving a cocky, filthy-rich Brit and his millions of dollars. Valentine’s challenge: to figure out how all the pieces of the seamy puzzle fit together . . . before his luck runs out and his life goes bust.

Aquarium species native to America.

From the great raconteur of the American underworld, and author of The Gangs of New York, comes Sucker’s Progress: An Information History of Gambling in America. From Midwestern Riverboats to East Coast Racetracks, Herbert Asbury explores the legal and illegal history of gambling in pre-WWII America. Describing notorious gambling havens like Chicago and New Orleans, as well as lesser-known outposts in cities like Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Cincinnati, Ohio, Asbury examines the gambling houses, big and small, which peppered the American landscape. Also presented are the lives of some of America’s most famous gamblers, including Mike McDonald, John Morrissey, and Richard Canfield, as well as their infamous counterparts like “Canada Bill” and “Charley Black Eyes,” men who made their names as grifters and con men. Asbury also explores the games these men played, describing the rules and origins of dozens of dice and card games. From $1 lottery tickets to thousand dollar pokes antes, America’s love of gambling thrives today, but it was during Asbury’s era that gambling was established as an American passion. “Asbury embarked on what seems in retrospect an extraordinary mission: to document the entire underworld of America, from New Orleans to San Francisco....His studies of gambling, of the racial politics of the New Orleans French Quarter, and of the history of Chicago crime remain monuments to an ambition that was then confined to the fringes of pop history. Sucker’s Progress, his history of gambling and swindling in America, is dense with facts about a subject one would have thought persisted only as rumour and tall tale.”—A. GOPNIK, The New Yorker One of the best American books of its kind. He tells the story of the New York underworld of the past century, and his narrative is excellently presented in a book adorned with amusing pictures from the weeklies and newspapers.”—E. Pearson, The Sat. Rev. of Books