The Money Changers

The #1 bestselling author of the blockbuster thrillers Airport and Hotel takes on the world of high finance: “Cliched, lurid and utterly absorbing” (Philip Hensher, The Guardian). Ben Roselli, president of First Mercantile American Bank and grandson of the founder, makes the shocking announcement that he’s dying. With no offspring to inherit the company, Roselli knows that executive VPs Roscoe Heyward and Alex Vandervoort are the obvious candidates to succeed him. Heyward, who has been with First Mercantile for two decades, will do whatever it takes to bring in new clients and win the coveted presidency. Vandervoort, a newcomer from the Federal Reserve with a left-wing girlfriend, advocates for a socially responsible plan of growth. And now the discovery of counterfeit cash and credit card fraud threatens the future of the bank itself. From the day-to-day business dealings to the inner sanctums of the money trading center and the boardroom, Hailey’s novel is a riveting tale of ambition, greed, and the US banking system.

Originally published in 1908, this cautionary novel from the author of The Jungle explores corruption within the American system as a group of power brokers joins forces for personal gain, triggering a crash on Wall Street.

At almost $2 trillion per day in trades, currency markets vitally link the world together. Yet few people understand how they work and why they are prone to instability and bouts of panic. This book takes the reader behind the scenes on a tour of the places, the machines, the circuitry and the people involved in moving world money. This journey begins as a traveler removes foreign currency from an ATM machine in Istanbul. The author guides us from the periphery of the market into its neural centers in financial hubs such as London and New York. Currency traders, market analysts, money managers and payments systems architects show their workplaces and reveal their day-to-day experiences in this unpredictable and rapidly evolving world. The experts interviewed may use unfamiliar terms, but the logical progression of the chapters and participants' stories told in workplace settings bring abstract concepts down to earth. After completing the tour, the reader will have a clear picture of the geographical and structural organization of global currency markets and the people who run them. This vision of a volatile, evolving structure will provide a useful framework for deciphering the complex causes of yet unforeseen financial events.

Ferdinand Pecora investigated with ruthlessly abandon the nation’s most influential bankers and stockbrokers to determine what caused the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which in turn led to the Great Depression. Pecora, as Chief Counsel of Senate launched investigation, shined a vivid light on the shocking practices, deception, and lack of ethics that permeated Wall Street from the bottom to the highest echelons of power. Wall Street’s major players thought they were untouchable masters of their domain, but in the hot seat of the witness chair, eye-to-eye with Pecora, they were no match and fell like dominoes. The mighty J. P. Morgan was forced to admit he and many of his partners hadn’t paid any income taxes in the previous two years and his reputation was tarnished. Pecora’s expose of the practices of National City Bank (now Citibank) made banner headlines and caused the bank’s president to resign. Pecora Wall Street Under Oath in easy to understand language because he was afraid the public might get forgetful. And he was right. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the 2008 “Great Recession” was actually worse than the Great Depression. Clearly, we need to stay vigilant with a refresher course from Ferdinand Pecora. First published in 1939, this classic book is as relevant today as it was then – because on Wall Street, greed is always in style.

A compelling account of Christianity’s Jewish beginnings, from one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient religion How did a group of charismatic, apocalyptic Jewish missionaries, working to prepare their world for the impending realization of God's promises to Israel, end up inaugurating a movement that would grow into the gentile church? Committed to Jesus’s prophecy—“The Kingdom of God is at hand!”—they were, in their own eyes, history's last generation. But in history's eyes, they became the first Christians. In this electrifying social and intellectual history, Paula Fredriksen answers this question by reconstructing the life of the earliest Jerusalem community. As her account arcs from this group’s hopeful celebration of Passover with Jesus, through their bitter controversies that fragmented the movement’s midcentury missions, to the city’s fiery end in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, she brings this vibrant apostolic community to life. Fredriksen offers a vivid portrait both of this temple-centered messianic movement and of the bedrock convictions that animated and sustained it.

Master storyteller Arthur Hailey’s #1 New York Times bestseller is a turbocharged thriller about America’s automobile industry, from the bottom up Ford. Chrysler. General Motors. They were the Big Three, accused by critics of greed, monopoly, and abusing the public trust. In the shadows of these towering giants is American Motors, blazing its own path to greatness. Adam Trenton, the fiercely ambitious executive in charge of project development, wants to take the company into the future with the new, cutting-edge car he’s developing, but his single-minded dedication has his neglected wife seeking dangerous thrills, making Adam vulnerable to a growing web of deceit, blackmail, and organized crime. From Detroit’s inner city to its affluent suburbs, from the executive suites and secret design studios to the assembly line jungle and the maximum security testing grounds, Wheels is a breakneck ride full of human drama through one of America’s most complex and competitive industries.

Since money was invented, there has been a debate about better ways of creating it and better rules to govern how it works - until the last generation, when it began to seem that the money system had been handed down by God and remained unchanged ever since. But the last few years have seen an increasingly powerful resurgence of interest in changing the system fundamentally, and bringing the monetary trends that affect all our lives under our control. Few realize that the debate has roots and a tradition, covering mainstream economists like Keynes and Hayek, statesmen like Lincoln, entrepreneurs like Ford and Soros, as well as the imaginative mavericks behind local currencies and e-money. This volume collects together some of their most influential writings to provide a handbook on a vital train of ideas, and a guide to a debate on changing money that is becoming increasingly important.