Lying for Money
How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of the World
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Lying for Money
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Narrated by:
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Tim Paige
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Written by:
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Dan Davies
About this listen
An entertaining, deeply informative explanation of how high-level financial crimes work, written “with verve and wit” (The Sunday Times, London) by an industry insider who’s an expert in the field.
The way most white-collar crime works is by manipulating institutional psychology. That means creating something that looks as much as possible like a normal set of transactions. The drama comes later, when it all unwinds.
Financial crime seems horribly complicated, but there are only so many ways you can con someone out of what’s theirs. In Lying for Money, veteran regulatory economist and market analyst Dan Davies tells the story of fraud through a genealogy of financial malfeasance, including: the Great Salad Oil swindle, the Pigeon King International fraud, the fictional British colony of Poyais in South America, the Boston Ladies’ Deposit Company, the Portuguese Banknote Affair, Theranos, and the Bre-X scam. Davies brings new insights into these schemes and shows how all frauds, current and historical, belong to one of four categories (“long firm,” counterfeiting, control fraud, and market crimes) and operate on the same basic principles. The only elements that change are the victims, the scammers, and the terminology.
Revealing some of the most famous frauds of the modern age, Davies explains how fraud has shaped the entire development of the modern world economy. For those “who like their true-crime stories laced with economics will enjoy these forays into the dark side” (Kirkus Reviews) this is a gripping and vivid look at modern market societies.
©2018 Daniel Davies. Originally published in Great Britain in 2018 by Profile Books. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.You may also enjoy...
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 21
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 18
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
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Written by: Ben McKenzie, and others
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
In 2021 cryptocurrency went mainstream. Giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady endorsed it, and TV ads hailed it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knew how it worked—but why bother with the particulars when everyone was making a fortune from Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, or some other bizarrely named “digital asset”? As he observed this frenzy, investigative reporter Zeke Faux had a nagging question: Was it all just a confidence game of epic proportions? What started as curiosity—with a dash of FOMO—would morph into a two-year globe-spanning quest.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not for me
- By rmack on 2023-10-07
Written by: Zeke Faux
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The Trading Game
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- Written by: Gary Stevenson
- Narrated by: Gary Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 13
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 11
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Story5 out of 5 stars 11
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5 out of 5 stars
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Den of Thieves
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- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible Narration
- By Nadège on 2019-02-08
Written by: James B. Stewart