A First-Class Catastrophe

A First-Class Catastrophe PDF Author: Diana B. Henriques
Publisher: Henry Holt
ISBN: 1627791647
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
"The definitive account of the crash of 1987, a cautionary tale of how the U.S. financial system nearly collapsed ... Monday, October 19, 1987, was by far the worst day in Wall Street history. The market fell 22.6 percent--almost twice as bad as the worst day of 1929--equal to a loss of nearly 5,000 points today. But Black Monday was more than just a one-day market crash; it was seven years in the making and threatened the entire U.S. financial system. Drawing on superlative archival research and dozens of original interviews, the award-winning financial journalist Diana B. Henriques weaves a tale of ignored warnings, market delusions, and destructive decisions, a drama that stretches from New York and Washington to Chicago and California. Among the central characters are pension fund managers, bank presidents, government regulators, exchange executives, and a pair of university professors whose bright idea for reducing risk backfires with devastating consequences. As the story hurtles toward a terrible reckoning, the players struggle to avoid a national panic, and unexpected heroes step in to avert total disaster. For thirty years, investors, bankers, and regulators have failed to heed the lessons of Black Monday. But with uncanny precision, all the key fault lines of the devastating crisis of 2008--breakneck automation, poorly understood financial products fueled by vast amounts of borrowed money, fragmented regulation, gigantic herdlike investors--were first exposed as hazards in 1987. A First-Class Catastrophe offers a new way of looking not only at the past but at our financial future as well."--Dust jacket.

A First-Class Catastrophe

A First-Class Catastrophe PDF Author: Diana B. Henriques
Publisher: Henry Holt
ISBN: 1627791647
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Get Book

Book Description
"The definitive account of the crash of 1987, a cautionary tale of how the U.S. financial system nearly collapsed ... Monday, October 19, 1987, was by far the worst day in Wall Street history. The market fell 22.6 percent--almost twice as bad as the worst day of 1929--equal to a loss of nearly 5,000 points today. But Black Monday was more than just a one-day market crash; it was seven years in the making and threatened the entire U.S. financial system. Drawing on superlative archival research and dozens of original interviews, the award-winning financial journalist Diana B. Henriques weaves a tale of ignored warnings, market delusions, and destructive decisions, a drama that stretches from New York and Washington to Chicago and California. Among the central characters are pension fund managers, bank presidents, government regulators, exchange executives, and a pair of university professors whose bright idea for reducing risk backfires with devastating consequences. As the story hurtles toward a terrible reckoning, the players struggle to avoid a national panic, and unexpected heroes step in to avert total disaster. For thirty years, investors, bankers, and regulators have failed to heed the lessons of Black Monday. But with uncanny precision, all the key fault lines of the devastating crisis of 2008--breakneck automation, poorly understood financial products fueled by vast amounts of borrowed money, fragmented regulation, gigantic herdlike investors--were first exposed as hazards in 1987. A First-Class Catastrophe offers a new way of looking not only at the past but at our financial future as well."--Dust jacket.

A First-Class Catastrophe

A First-Class Catastrophe PDF Author: Diana B. Henriques
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1627791655
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
The definitive account of the crash of 1987, a cautionary tale of how the U.S. financial system nearly collapsed--from the bestselling author of The Wizard of Lies Monday, October 19, 1987, was by far the worst day in Wall Street history. The market fell 22.6 percent – almost twice as bad as the worst day of 1929 – equal to a one-day loss of nearly 5,000 points today. Black Monday was more than seven years in the making and threatened nearly every U.S. financial institution. Drawing on superlative archival research and dozens of original interviews Diana B. Henriques weaves a tale of missed opportunities, market delusions, and destructive actions that stretched from the “silver crisis” of 1980 to turf battles in Washington, a poisonous rivalry between the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the almost-fatal success of two California professors whose idea for reducing market risk spun terribly out of control. As the story hurtles forward, the players struggle to forestall a looming market meltdown and unexpected heroes step in to avert total disaster. For thirty years, investors, regulators, and bankers have failed to heed the lessons of 1987, even as the same patterns have resurfaced, most spectacularly in the financial crisis of 2008. A First-Class Catastrophe offers a new way of looking not only at the past, but at our financial future as well.

The Cure for Catastrophe

The Cure for Catastrophe PDF Author: Robert Muir-Wood
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465096476
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
We can't stop natural disasters but we can stop them being disastrous. One of the world's foremost risk experts tells us how. Year after year, floods wreck people's homes and livelihoods, earthquakes tear communities apart, and tornadoes uproot whole towns. Natural disasters cause destruction and despair. But does it have to be this way? In The Cure for Catastrophe, global risk expert Robert Muir-Wood argues that our natural disasters are in fact human ones: We build in the wrong places and in the wrong way, putting brick buildings in earthquake country, timber ones in fire zones, and coastal cities in the paths of hurricanes. We then blindly trust our flood walls and disaster preparations, and when they fail, catastrophes become even more deadly. No society is immune to the twin dangers of complacency and heedless development. Recognizing how disasters are manufactured gives us the power to act. From the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 to Hurricane Katrina, The Cure for Catastrophe recounts the ingenious ways in which people have fought back against disaster. Muir-Wood shows the power and promise of new predictive technologies, and envisions a future where information and action come together to end the pain and destruction wrought by natural catastrophes. The decisions we make now can save millions of lives in the future. Buzzing with political plots, newfound technologies, and stories of surprising resilience, The Cure for Catastrophe will revolutionize the way we conceive of catastrophes: though natural disasters are inevitable, the death and destruction are optional. As we brace ourselves for deadlier cataclysms, the cure for catastrophe is in our hands.

Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival

Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival PDF Author: Laurence Gonzales
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393244148
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
"A richly detailed story that is equal parts heartbreaking, inspiring…and full of fascinating science…masterful." —San Francisco Chronicle As hundreds of rescue workers waited on the ground, United Airlines Flight 232 wallowed drunkenly over the bluffs northwest of Sioux City. The plane slammed onto the runway and burst into a vast fireball. The rescuers didn't move at first: nobody could possibly survive that crash. And then people began emerging from the summer corn that lined the runways. Miraculously, 184 of 296 passengers lived. No one has ever attempted the complete reconstruction of a crash of this magnitude. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of survivors, crew, and airport and rescue personnel, Laurence Gonzales, a commercial pilot himself, captures, minute by minute, the harrowing journey of pilots flying a plane with no controls and flight attendants keeping their calm in the face of certain death. He plumbs the hearts and minds of passengers as they pray, bargain with God, plot their strategies for survival, and sacrifice themselves to save others. Ultimately he takes us, step by step, through the gripping scientific detective work in super-secret labs to dive into the heart of a flaw smaller than a grain of rice that shows what brought the aircraft down. An unforgettable drama of the triumph of heroism over tragedy and human ingenuity over technological breakdown, Flight 232 is a masterpiece in the tradition of the greatest aviation stories ever told.

Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe

Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe PDF Author: Mike O'Connor
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0307555437
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Throughout his childhood, Mike O’Connor’s family pretended to be normal. But Mike and his two younger sisters knew that their parents were hiding something–a secret they didn’t dare talk about. The family appeared to be no different from any of their small-town Texas neighbors–that is, until suddenly, the O’Connor’s would flee, leaving with only a few hours’ notice, abandoning houses and pets and possessions and running across the border to Mexico. For all of Mike’s adolescence, O’Connor family life alternated between relative comfort and abject poverty–sometimes within a matter of days. From living in a Texas ranch house to living in two rented rooms in an impoverished Mexican village, the O’Connors never knew what lay ahead–only that they must not draw attention to themselves. Though their parents steadfastly denied it, the children knew that something was chasing them–a past that hovered like an invisible enemy, always waiting to strike, always in pursuit. But it was not until much later, after his parents’ deaths, that Mike O’Connor, now an investigative reporter, was able to uncover the truth about his family’s past. As the secrets were unlocked one by one and the long trail of deception unfurled, Mike faced the heart-wrenching ramifications of his parents’ actions–and made a discovery that shook his family loyalty to its core. Full of incredible details of a life lived on both sides of the border, in near-poverty and near-wealth, Mike O’Connor’s account is a real-life suspense story of childhood mysteries and strange circumstances that will enthrall readers to its very end.

Ecology or Catastrophe

Ecology or Catastrophe PDF Author: Janet Biehl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199342490
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Murray Bookchin was not only one of the most significant and influential environmental philosophers of the twentieth century--he was also one of the most prescient. From industrial agriculture to nuclear radiation, Bookchin has been at the forefront of every major ecological issue since the very beginning, often proposing a solution before most people even recognized there was a problem. Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin is the first biography of this groundbreaking environmental and political thinker. Author Janet Biehl worked as his collaborator and copyeditor for 19 years, editing his every word. Thanks to her extensive personal history with Bookchin as well as her access to his papers and archival research, Ecology or Catastrophe offers unique insight into his personal and professional life. Founder of the social ecology movement, Bookchin first started raising environmental issues in 1952. He foresaw global warming in the 1960s and even then argued that we should look into renewable energy sources as an alternative to fossil fuels. Wary of pesticides and other chemicals used in industrial agriculture, he was also an early advocate of small-scale organic farming, which has developed into the present locavore movement and the revival of organic markets. Even Occupy can trace the origins of its leaderless structure and general assemblies to the nonhierarchical organizational form Bookchin developed as a libertarian socialist. Bookchin believed that social and ecological issues were deeply intertwined. Convinced that capitalism pushes businesses to maximize profits and ignore humanist concerns, he argued that eco-crises could be resolved by a new social arrangement. His solution was Communalism, a new form of libertarian socialism that he developed. An optimist and utopian, Bookchin believed in the potentiality for human beings to use reason to solve all social and ecological problems.

CATastrophe!

CATastrophe! PDF Author: Ann Marie Stephens
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
ISBN: 1635924677
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 39

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Book Description
Nine kittens go on an exciting boating adventure that's a (funny) CATastrophe in this playful picture book that demonstrates the key math concept of patterns. A crew of hungry kittens and their captain head to the lake to catch some dinner, but the fish have surprises in store for them. Physics is at work too. What happens when confused kitties paddle every which way? Or when they all lean in the same direction? A pattern is needed to avoid a catastrophe! Patterns are the foundation on which math is built. Using strong rhythm, clever wordplay, and countable characters, CATastrophe! is a fun read-aloud that also shows what patterns can do. Helpful backmatter will deepen readers' understanding and challenge them to find more patterns in this book and in our world.

Bernie Madoff, the Wizard of Lies

Bernie Madoff, the Wizard of Lies PDF Author: Diana B. Henriques
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
ISBN: 9781851689033
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Based on award-winning reporter Diana Henriques' unprecedented access to Madoff, including extensive correspondence and his first interviews for publication since his arrest, "Bernie Madoff, The Wizard of Lies" is the ultimate true-life financial thriller.

Dark Pools

Dark Pools PDF Author: Scott Patterson
Publisher: Crown Currency
ISBN: 0307887197
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
A news-breaking account of the global stock market's subterranean battles, Dark Pools portrays the rise of the "bots"--artificially intelligent systems that execute trades in milliseconds and use the cover of darkness to out-maneuver the humans who've created them. In the beginning was Josh Levine, an idealistic programming genius who dreamed of wresting control of the market from the big exchanges that, again and again, gave the giant institutions an advantage over the little guy. Levine created a computerized trading hub named Island where small traders swapped stocks, and over time his invention morphed into a global electronic stock market that sent trillions in capital through a vast jungle of fiber-optic cables. By then, the market that Levine had sought to fix had turned upside down, birthing secretive exchanges called dark pools and a new species of trading machines that could think, and that seemed, ominously, to be slipping the control of their human masters. Dark Pools is the fascinating story of how global markets have been hijacked by trading robots--many so self-directed that humans can't predict what they'll do next.

The Disaster Artist

The Disaster Artist PDF Author: Greg Sestero
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476730407
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Presents a humorous ode to cinematic hubris, discussing the story of the mysteriously wealthy misfit, Tommy Wiseau, the producer, director, and star of the "The Room," which later became an international cult film despite making no money at the box office.