Download The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History AudioBook Free
The Wall Street Journal's award-winning business reporter unveils the bizarre and sinister tale of what sort of math genius called Tom Hayes, a handful of outrageous confederates, and a deeply corrupt banking system ignited one of the biggest financial scandals in history. In 2006, an oddball band of bankers, professionals and agents from some of the world's major financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor - the London interbank offered rate, which determines the rates of interest on trillions in lending options worldwide - was established daily by a small band of easily manipulated functionaries, and they could experience huge earnings by nudging it to suit their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, an excellent but stressed mathematician, became the lynchpin of the crazy alliance that amongst others included a French trader nicknamed "Gollum"; the broker "Abbo", who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking alcohol; a Kazakh chicken farmer turned something lacking financial whiz youngster; a broker known as "Village" (brief for "Village Idiot") and captivated by human-animal sex; an executive called "Clumpy" because of his patchwork hair thinning; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed "Big Nose". Eventually known as the "Spider Network", Hayes's group made untold riches - until everything unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion. The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the rip-off, but a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout, made to promote envelope-pushing action while shielding higher-ups from the results of their subordinates' rapacious activities.
