What do you think?
Rate this book
Beyond Greed
In an eerie echo of 1929's Black Thursday, which signaled the beginning of the Great Depression, March 27, 1980, was dubbed Silver Thursday by a very fightened Wall Street. The silver futures market had collapsed, nearly destroying the entire commodities market and several major banks. In a tour de force of investigative reporting, Stephen Fay exposes he complex set of circumstances and the extraordinary cast of characters behind the near disaster. At the center were the notorious Texas oil billionaires Bunker and Herbert Hunt. Enlisting the help of wealthy Arabs and bankers worldwide, the Hunts wheeled and dealed an audacious -- and near-perfect --attempt to corner the world's silver. Had they succeeded, they would have had unprecedented control over world finances, with almost unimaginable consequences for us all. Taking the reader on a dramatic, at times comic, at times horrifying, journey from Dallas to the commodities markets in New York and Chicago, from Washington, D.C., to Saudi Arabia, "Beyond Greed" shows just how the Hunts' plan got as far as it did -- and why the commodities markets are still gravely vulnerable. It could happen again.
- GenresHistory
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 14, 1982
1 person is currently reading
26 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 3, 2007
This is another one of those books that follows the lives of the billionaires -- this time the Hunt family. At some point, the money is just a what is known as a "numeraire" -- it has no significance except as a number. And it is merely the number that the Hunt's go after in their effort to capture the silver market.
Most of Marx's insights about capitalism can be seen in this story -- by no means is Fay (they author) a marxist, though.
My friend Paul once told me that the true sign of wealth is not how much you have but how much dept you can accrue. At one point, one of the Hunts is so far in debt that the US government fears a collapse of a segment of the economy. It thereby bails out Hunt and his debt.
Laughing matters (in the double sense).
Most of Marx's insights about capitalism can be seen in this story -- by no means is Fay (they author) a marxist, though.
My friend Paul once told me that the true sign of wealth is not how much you have but how much dept you can accrue. At one point, one of the Hunts is so far in debt that the US government fears a collapse of a segment of the economy. It thereby bails out Hunt and his debt.
Laughing matters (in the double sense).
Displaying 1 of 1 review