Horst

[Fiona Shnapple]

This book is focused on the NYMEX, and oil. But it's the same in all
the commodities pits, on the KNIFE, the NY Futures Exchange, and in
Chicago where Horst trades. This is the culture.


The Asylum: The Renegades Who Hijacked the World's Oil Market

Leah McGrath Goodman


They were a band of outsiders unable to get jobs with New York's
gilded financial establishment. They would go on to corner the world's
multitrillion-dollar oil market, reaping unimaginable riches while
bringing the economy to its knees. Meet the self-anointed kings of the
New York Mercantile Exchange. In some ways, they are everything you
would expect them to be: a secretive, members-only club of men and
women who live lavish lifestyles; cavort with politicians, strippers,
and celebrities; and blissfully jacked up oil prices to nearly $150 a
barrel while profiting off the misery of the working class. In other
ways, they are nothing you can imagine: many come from working-class
families themselves. The progeny of Jewish, Irish, and Italian
immigrants who escaped war-torn Europe, they take pride in flagrantly
spurning Wall Street. Under the thumb of an all-powerful international
oil cartel, the energy market had long eluded the grasp of America's
hungry capitalists. Neither the oil royalty of Houston nor the titans
of Wall Street had ever succeeded in fully wresting away control. But
facing extinction, the rough-and-tumble traders of Nymex led by the
reluctant son of a produce merchant went after this Goliath and won,
creating the world's first free oil market and minting billions in the
process. Their stunning journey from poverty to prosperity belies the
brutal and violent history that is their legacy. For the first time,
The Asylum unmasks the oil market's self-described "inmates" in all
their unscripted and dysfunctional glory: the happily married father
from Long Island whose lust for money and power was exceeded only by
his taste for cruel pranks; the Italian kung fu fighting gasoline
trader whose ferocity in the trading pits earned him countless
millions; the cheerful Nazi hunter who traded quietly by day and
ambushed Nazi sympathizers by night; and the Irish-born femme fatale
who outsmarted all but one of the exchange's chairmen the Hungarian
emigre who, try as he might, could do nothing to rein in the oil
market's unruly inhabitants. From the treacherous boardroom schemes to
the hookers and blow of the trading pits; from the repeat terrorist
attacks and FBI stings to the grand alliances and outrageous fortunes
that brought the global economy to the brink, The Asylum ventures deep
into the belly of the beast, revealing how raw ambition and the
endless quest for wealth can change the very nature of both man and
market. Showcasing seven years of research and hundreds of hours of
interviews, Leah McGrath Goodman reveals what really happened behind
the scenes as oil prices topped out and what choice the traders
ultimately made when forced to choose between their longtime
brotherhood and their precious oil monopoly.
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l