The Gleeful Banker

Dave is a successful middle aged banker who has grown indifferent to the needs of his wife of 20 years. He spends most of his time successfully selling mortgage back securities to unsuspecting clients located around the world. It’s 2007 and things are very good for Dave and his bank. Then suddenly it’s 2008 and his world and the bank’s begin to shudder. Dave must change his ways or both him and the bank, he works for, will end up in the rubble created by the financial crisis of 2008.

Dave is a successful middle-aged banker who has grown indifferent to the needs of his wife of twenty years. He spends most of his time successfully selling mortgage-backed securities to unsuspecting clients located around the world. Suddenly, everything begins to fall apart in the financial crisis of 2008. So Dave must change his ways, or both him and the bank he works for will end up in the rubble.

Assassinations often change the course of history. Here is an intriguing look at dozens of notable assassinations and attempts throughout history, including complete details about the assassin, the victim, the circumstances of the attack, and the outcome. In the Crosshairs also features photos of many of the victims or would-be victims, and rare archival material, including excerpts from original police reports. High-profile celebrities, political figures, religious leaders, and many others have fallen prey to assassins, and many have survived. In the Crosshairs is arranged in alphabetical order, by last name, and includes such details as: On November 8, 1939, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped an assassination attempt – 12 minutes after he left a room where he was making a speech, a bomb went off. Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat would probably have survived the assassin’s bullet on October 6, 1981, if he hadn’t taken off his bulletproof vest – but he didn’t like the way it made his suit bulge. Robert John Bardo, the murderer of young actress Rebecca Schaeffer, carried with him to the crime scene a copy of J. D, Sallinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, just like Mark David Chapman did when he murdered John Lennon nearly nine years earlier. From notable murders (Abraham Lincoln, Gianni Versace, and Indira Gandhi) to little-known attempts (George W. Bush, Wild Bill Hickock, and Andy Warhol) here is a surprising, informative, and intriguing book that deserves to be on every history buff’s bookshelf. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

As recently as 2007, the Irish economy was still booming and the state coffers overflowing; by the end of 2008, the state faces an unprecedented crisis. The story of the Irish banking collapse is a tawdry tale of collusion, back-scratching and denial among bankers, developers, regulators and politicians. This is the story Shane Ross - independent Senator, long-time champion of citizens against misbehaving corporations, and Journalist of the Year 2009 - tells in The Bankers, going behind the scenes and the headlines to explain what happened, how it happened and who made it happen. They're all here: Sean FitzPatrick, Michael Fingleton and the other bank bosses; Patrick Neary and his colleagues in Ireland's failed regulatory apparatus; the property developers, whose borrowings ruined the banks, and many of whom are now personally ruined; and the politicians, whose policies helped inflate the property bubble and who have allowed the banks to dictate the terms of their bail-out. Shane Ross knows the stories of these people and what they got up to, and in The Bankers he makes sense of a scandal that will haunt Ireland for years to come.

Who was Edmond J. Safra? “The greatest banker of his generation,” in the estimation of a former World Bank President. The founder of four massive financial institutions on three continents, and a proud child of Beirut’s Jewish quarter. An innovative avatar of financial globalization, and a faithful heir to a tradition of old-world banking. The leading champion and protector of the Sephardic diaspora. In A Banker’s Journey, financial journalist and historian Daniel Gross, who, like Safra, traces his heritage to Aleppo, Syria, reconstructs the public life of an intensely private man. With exclusive access to Safra’s personal archives, Gross tracks the banker’s remarkable journey from Beirut to Milan, São Paulo, Geneva, and New York—to the pinnacle of global finance. Edmond Safra was fifteen in 1947, when his father sent him to establish a presence in Milan, Italy. Fluent in six languages, and with an eye for value, managing risk, and personal potential, Safra was in perpetual motion until his tragic death in 1999. The modern, global financial empire he built was based on timeless principles: a banker must protect his depositors and avoid excessive leverage and risk. In an age of busts and bailouts, Safra posted remarkable returns while rarely suffering a credit loss. From a young age, Safra assumed the mantle of leadership in the Syrian-Lebanese Jewish community, providing personal aid, supporting the communities that formed in exile, and championing Sephardic religious and educational efforts in Israel and around the world. Edmond J. Safra’s life of achievement in the twentieth century offers enduring lessons for those seeking to make their way in the twenty-first century. He inspired generations to make the world a better place.