David Enrich > Quotes

“Around the time that he canned Mike Offit, Mitchell organized a corporate getaway for hundreds of employees. The retreat was in a luxury resort overlooking Lake Maggiore, in the foothills of the Italian Alps. The bankers flew into Milan, and a fleet of Mercedes sedans chauffeured them into the mountains.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“Traders at other banks, many of which had outposts in the twin towers, realized that their first instincts had not been to fret about their colleagues’ well-being or the geopolitical implications of the attack, but instead to hunt for profitable trading opportunities. Then again, didn’t money make the world go round?”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“One day in 1998, a real estate broker called Offit: “Would you make a loan to Donald Trump?” Trump at the time was a casino magnate known for his occasional showbiz hijinks and his on-and-off dealings with organized crime figures. He also was a deadbeat, having defaulted on loans to finance his Atlantic City casinos and stiffing lenders, contractors, and business partners in other projects. Quite a few banks—including Citigroup, Manufacturers Hanover (a predecessor of JPMorgan), the British lender NatWest, and of course Bankers Trust—had endured hundreds of millions of losses at the hands of Trump.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“It dabbled in leveraged buyouts, the fad of the day, and then plowed into risky real estate lending, at one point making a $100 million loan to Donald Trump. The loan was unsecured: Bankers Trust had no claim to any collateral if Trump stopped paying the money back, which is exactly what he did. “We were brain dead when we made that loan,” Charles Sanford, the bank’s chairman, groaned in 1992. Before long, Bankers Trust moved on to derivatives.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“gritty”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“The famous Dutch tulip bubble largely involved the frenzied trading of options to buy or sell the bulbs—a precursor to modern-day stock options—rather than transactions involving the actual flowers.”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“(The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a woman having hysterics “is so common an occurrence” that the accusation, though untrue, was not libelous.)25”
― David Enrich, Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice

“On January 6, months of fearmongering and lies about voter fraud and a stolen election exploded into a deadly insurrection. Jones Day wasn't to blame, but it wasn't not to blame either. The firm had contributed to misapprehensions about the vulnerability of the electoral system. More important, it had nurtured, protected, and enabled Donald Trump since long before anyone took his candidacy seriously and for long after his demagogy was impossible to miss. Now the costs were clear. (303)”
― David Enrich, Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice

“These dumb-money clients, or “muppets,” which bought something and then held on to it for months, maybe years, didn’t fit into the industry’s carnivorous culture and weren’t especially good for the trading business. Brokers, face-to-face with one of these sloths, had the distinct pleasure of finding a predator to take the other side of the trade—and Hayes was increasingly hearing the words I’ve got a gift for you. The lucky trader (in this case, him) would be able to do the deal at a favorable price that a more sophisticated institution, such as a fast-moving hedge fund, would never accept.”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“Citigroup, Manufacturers Hanover (a predecessor of JPMorgan), the British lender NatWest, and of course Bankers Trust—had endured hundreds of millions of losses at the hands of Trump.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“In some ways, the tobacco work was the cultural glue that kept Jones Day together. So many of the firm’s lawyers at one point or another had worked on an RJR matter—and so many had gotten their first courtroom experience on a tobacco case. It was an ideal training ground, and it had the side benefit of desensitizing young lawyers to working for noxious clients.”
― David Enrich, Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice

“At the time, cigarette companies were desperately searching for evidence that maybe, just maybe, their products didn’t kill their customers.”
― David Enrich, Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice

“So any Syrian transactions should be treated STRICTLY confidential and should involve any colleagues on a ‘Must-Know’ basis only! . . . We do not want to create any publicity or other ‘noise’ in the markets or media.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“By 2006, Deutsche had zapped nearly $11 billion into Iran, Burma, Syria, Libya, and the Sudan, providing desperately needed hard currency to the world’s outlaw regimes and single-handedly eroding the effectiveness of peaceful efforts to defuse international crises.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“He was too intense. He yelled too much. Some younger employees were scared of him. “Needs to work on self-control and stress levels,” Pieri wrote. “Learn about how to deal and talk to others such that you can achieve your desired result without anger. Learn about emotional intelligence.”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“have had to put up any hard assets as collateral, and the deal soon died.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“He stood out in an industry brimming with socially maladroit math whizzes and slightly sociopathic type A personalities.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“To employees, the eras of Ackermann and Jain had become parables for the perils of growing too fast, pursuing profits above all else, not caring about clients’ integrity, not taking the time to integrate businesses.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“One day in 1998, a real estate broker called Offit: “Would you make a loan to Donald Trump?” Trump at the time was a casino magnate known for his occasional showbiz hijinks and his on-and-off dealings with organized crime figures. He also was a deadbeat, having defaulted on loans to finance his Atlantic City casinos and stiffing lenders, contractors, and business partners in other projects. Quite a few banks—including”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“autism”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum—where the world’s most important and self-important people gather each year to admire each other under the guise of making the world a better place—was in full swing.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“At work the next day, Davies asked Hayes how his night had been. Hayes took the casual question literally, and without reserve or the slightest sense of faux pas told Davies what had happened. Within days, the pie-in-the-bath story had bounced all over the City’s trading and brokerage floors. It would continue to circulate for more than a decade.”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“both cases, Deutsche steered very rich Russians into the Trump ventures, according to people who were involved in the deals—just a couple of years after American regulators had punished the bank for whisking Russian money into the U.S. financial system via Latvia.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“In the Middle East, Iran was trying to fill a power vacuum left by the demise of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi dictatorship. To do that, it needed to keep its neighbor’s fledgling democracy unstable. What better way to accomplish that than by waging a relentless campaign of bloody violence? The hundreds of millions of dollars that Deutsche wired to Iranian banks provided vital funding for the sanctioned country to pay for its terrorism. Soon Iraq was being ripped apart by violence. Roadside bombs detonated all over the country, targeting the country’s fragile government and the U.S. military forces that were trying to keep the peace.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“In other words, the laziness of a few bank employees—“sheep,” as Read sometimes called them—meant that ICAP’s run-throughs had a startling amount of real power.”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“Trump, however, had no intention of repaying the loan on time. He asked his lawyers to figure out a work-around. One of them dissected each of the loan documents and, on a conference call with his colleagues to brainstorm how their client could wriggle out of his obligations, mentioned the existence of a so-called force majeure—act of God—provision in the loan agreement. That meant that in the event of an unanticipatable catastrophe, like a natural disaster, the contract wasn’t enforceable.”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers

“One night, Hayes went home after work and decided he would cook dinner for them. Ainsworth, stuck at work on a conference call, was running late. When she finally got home, dinner was nearly ready, but Ainsworth was wiped out and declared that she wanted to decompress in a bath. “Give me ten minutes,” she said. After a while, Hayes went upstairs to the bathroom to see what was taking so long. Ainsworth was still soaking in the tub. Hayes was hungry. He’d prepared a shepherd’s pie, a casserole-style combination of ground beef, mashed potatoes, and peas, and he wanted to eat it before it got cold. Ainsworth asked for a few more minutes. Ten minutes passed. Hayes marched back upstairs and dumped the pie into the water. Ainsworth, stunned, sat in the bath, peas bobbing around her. At work the next day, Davies asked Hayes how his night had been. Hayes took the casual question literally, and without reserve or the slightest sense of faux pas told Davies what had happened. Within days, the pie-in-the-bath story had bounced all over the City’s trading and brokerage floors. It would continue to circulate for more than a decade.”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“Citing the constitutional right to counsel is a convenient way for giant firms to rationalize this representation and to preempt criticism—or even scrutiny—of whom elite lawyers serve and how they serve them.”
― David Enrich, Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice

“The SFO refused, so Bermingham’s lawyers sued—perhaps the only time in history that someone had sued a government to force it to file criminal charges against the plaintiff.”
― David Enrich, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History

“By 2006, Deutsche had zapped nearly $11 billion into Iran, Burma, Syria, Libya, and the Sudan, providing desperately needed hard currency to the world’s outlaw regimes and single-handedly eroding the effectiveness of peaceful efforts to defuse international crises.*”
― David Enrich, Dark Towers