Horst

[Fiona Shnapple]

I'm pointing, now shaking a spoon as I say this...and looking not like
a Jewish Mother, but the last protestant: "Vita Activa!"    "It's
about work!"



;-)

http://quarterlyconversation.com/william-gaddis-the-recognitions-j-r

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 6:09 PM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> which like they are all, oh this is a wild bunch of dudes and dudettes
> with a fascinating white collar job trading commodities
>
> but, like, "being commoditized" is what everyone wants to avoid
> because it is like what Gaddis kept mentioning in JR as "decline from
> status to contract" -- these commodities now are extracted by
> heartless faceless corporations without regard to previous inhabitants
> or the state their excavations leave the landscape in
>
> and yes, that includes the agricultural commodities with the factory
> farming and the overfertilizing and the lakes of pig excrement, as
> well as the mineral commodities with their well-known toxic byproducts
>
> so basically they are the vacuum, sucking the value out -- they are
> the evil white sugar and white bread and white rice of the system, all
> the nutrients and fiber removed in their evil quest to maximize rather
> than optimize profits!
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 6:01 PM, Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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.
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l