Naked Short And Greedy

Rigged financial markets and hopeless under-regulation on Wall Street are not new problems. In this book, Susanne Trimbath gives a sobering account of naked short selling, the failure to settle, and her efforts over decades, trying to get this fixed. Twenty-five years ago, Trimbath was working “backstage at Wall Street” when a group of corporate trust specialists told her about a problem in shareholder voting rights. When she went to senior management at Depository Trust Company (DTC), then and still the largest securities depository in the world, they brushed it off saying, “You can’t balance the world.” Ten years later, a lawyer from Texas would tell her that the same problem was about to blow up the financial markets: Wall Street brokers are using short sales and fails to deliver to grab the assets of American entrepreneurs. This is a cautionary tale. What started as a regulatory failure turned into a regulatory crisis. Shareholder democracy is in shambles. The institutions that were established to correct a problem of trade settlement failures have instead exacerbated the problem. Global financial markets may not survive what comes next.

The “greater fool” theory of economics states that it’s possible to make money by buying paper (securities), whether overvalued or not, and later, selling it at a profit because there will always be an even greater fool willing to pay the higher price. Many described in this book profited by peddling such worthless junk to foolish investors. But for some people—Bernie Madoff, Norman Hsu, Sholam Weiss, and “Crazie Eddie” Antar, aka the “Darth Vader of Capitalism”—overvalued securities were not enough. Outright fraud was their way of life. History of Greed is the compelling inside story of the names you know—Charles Ponzi, Baron Rothschild, Lou Pearlman—and the names you don’t—Isaac Le Maire, the world’s first “naked” short-seller. It’s also our story—why we ignore the lessons of the past and fall prey, most every time, to the promise of easy money. For thousands of years, alchemists unsuccessfully tried to turn worthless base metals into gold. Where science failed at turning nothing into something, business succeeded. Sometimes we praise the creators of derivatives, collateral debt obligations, subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, or auction rate securities as Wall Street’s new financial wizards, the creators of “magic paper.” Other times, we vilify and prosecute them as scam artists. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell who is who. History of Greed reveals the inside secrets of how the markets really work, and how scam artists abuse them to gain an unfair edge or to outright steal. It describes how luftgescheft (“air business”), wizardry, dishonesty, and fraud are used to swindle people. Along with a comprehensive bibliography, History of Greed also details: 400 years of financial fraud—from everyday fraud to the odd and unusual Accounting fraud (phantom sales), stock option fraud (backdating), auction rate securities, hedge fund fraud, Ponzi schemes, promotion fraud (pump-and-dump scams), and money laundering How to detect fraudulent schemes How government regulation only fixes yesterday’s problems If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. If they say you can’t lose, you probably will. History of Greed shows that there really is no such thing as a free lunch, while also detailing how not to become the “greater fool.”

A New York Times bestseller! Who’s really to blame for America’s catastrophic financial meltdown and devastating national recession? Contrary to what the “Occupy Movement” might tell you, it’s not just greedy Wall Street executives (though they certainly earned their share of scorn). It’s not just failed regulation (even though Washington has failed miserably, both Republicans and Democrats, to protect us). As one of America’s top financial professionals reveals in this shocking new book, the failures of Wall Street and Washington have opened us up to economic warfare, with our foreign enemies exploiting our lurking financial weaknesses. In Secret Weapon, Kevin D. Freeman unveils how all the evidence—including motive, means, and opportunity—points to America’s foreign enemies as deliberately pushing our economy over the brink.

A little cat gets his revenge on a greedy old woman who will not share her special meal with him.

“For Erin Brockovich fans, a David vs. Goliath tale with a twist” (The New York Times Book Review)—the incredible true story of the lawyer who spent two decades building a case against DuPont for its use of the hazardous chemical PFOA, uncovering the worst case of environmental contamination in history—affecting virtually every person on the planet—and the conspiracy that kept it a secret for sixty years. The story that inspired Dark Waters, the major motion picture from Focus Features starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway, directed by Todd Haynes. 1998: Rob Bilott is a young lawyer specializing in helping big corporations stay on the right side of environmental laws and regulations. Then he gets a phone call from a West Virginia farmer named Earl Tennant, who is convinced the creek on his property is being poisoned by runoff from a neighboring DuPont landfill, causing his cattle and the surrounding wildlife to die in hideous ways. Earl hasn’t even been able to get a water sample tested by any state or federal regulatory agency or find a local lawyer willing to take the case. As soon as they hear the name DuPont—the area’s largest employer—they shut him down. Once Rob sees the thick, foamy water that bubbles into the creek, the gruesome effects it seems to have on livestock, and the disturbing frequency of cancer and other health problems in the area, he’s persuaded to fight against the type of corporation his firm routinely represents. After intense legal wrangling, Rob ultimately gains access to hundreds of thousands of pages of DuPont documents, some of them fifty years old, that reveal the company has been holding onto decades of studies proving the harmful effects of a chemical called PFOA, used in making Teflon. PFOA is often called a “forever chemical,” because once in the environment, it does not break down or degrade for millions of years, contaminating the planet forever. The case of one farmer soon spawns a class action suit on behalf of seventy thousand residents—and the shocking realization that virtually every person on the planet has been exposed to PFOA and carries the chemical in his or her blood. What emerges is a riveting legal drama “in the grand tradition of Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action” (Booklist, starred review) about malice and manipulation, the failings of environmental regulation; and one lawyer’s twenty-year struggle to expose the truth about this previously unknown—and still unregulated—chemical that we all have inside us.

Sarah Booth Delaney, a Southern belle known for abiding by tradition only when it suits her, is no stranger to drama. A talented actress and a P.I., she's chosen to pursue a career in Hollywood when she hears that her best friend's husband is suddenly on his deathbed back home in Mississippi---and he's not the only one. The vicious illness begins with burning fevers and delirium, quickly plunging its victims into a coma. The Centers for Disease Control is on the scene, but they can't find a cure for it or the boll weevils that are decimating Sunflower County's cotton crop. With patients in quarantine and the whole town in crisis, Sarah drops everything to stop the outbreak and save the only place she's ever been able to call home. From feuding scientists to ailing locals, there is no shortage of bad blood coursing through the little town of Zinnia, Mississippi, as Carolyn Haines's often steamy and always charming series turns equally intense in Greedy Bones.

When Joe Gallagher goes to work for an energy trading company in Boston , he soon finds that pursuit of his ambition to strike it rich in the markets will plunge him into a whirlwind, literally. As the firm's traders jockey to make bets on the effects of an upcoming hurricane, Gallagher must choose between following the careful dictates his old school veteran mentor, Andrews... Or become a disciple of The Ghost, a newly-hired boss whose maverick trading methods push the envelope, a binary trader's code of supreme wealth or complete ruin... A voyeuristic tour through the fascinating subculture of high-powered energy traders, Short introduces us to the larger-than-life men and women who run our markets— people who inhabit a world of intense stress, unbelievable gluttony, and the consequences of making and losing tens of millions of dollars in a single day.

For almost two years now, Kiera's boyfriend, Denny, has been everything she's ever wanted: loving, tender, and endlessly devoted to her. When they head off to a new city to start their lives together, Denny at his dream job and Kiera at a top-notch university, everything seems perfect. Then an unforeseen obligation forces the happy couple apart. Feeling lonely, confused, and in need of comfort, Kiera turns to an unexpected source - a local rock star named Kellan Kyle. At first, he's purely a friend that she can lean on, but as her loneliness grows, so does their relationship. And then one night everything changes . . . and one thing's for sure - nothing will ever be the same.

Philosopher, cultural critic, and agent provocateur Zizek constructs a fascinating new framework to look at the forces of violence in the world.

The GroupHug.Us Web site was started as a place for people to totally anonymously post their deepest, darkest secrets and confess them to the world. This collection gathers some of the best of the confessions that have been posted.