The story of its final, brutal collapse in the autumn of 2008, and its controversial sale to JPMorgan Chase, is an astonishing account of how one bank lost itself to greed and mismanagement, and how the entire financial industry—and even the entire country— lost its way as well. Kirsten Grind’s The Lost Bank is a magisterial and gripping account of these events, tracing the cultural shifts, the cockamamie financial engineering, and the hubris and avarice that made this incredible story possible. The men and women who become the central players in this tragedy— the regulators and the bankers, the home buyers and the lenders, the number crunchers and the shareholders—are heroes and villains, perpetrators and victims, often switching roles with one another as the drama unfolds. As a reporter at the time for the Puget Sound Business Journal, Grind covered a story set far from the epicenters of finance and media. It happened largely in places such as the suburban homes of central California and the office buildings of Seattle, but Grind covered the story from the beginning, and the clarity and persistence of her reporting earned her many awards, including being named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Gerald Loeb Award. She takes readers into boardrooms and bedrooms, revealing the power struggles that pitted regulators at the Office of Thrift Supervision and the FDIC against one another and the predatory negotiations of investment bankers and lawyers who enriched themselves during the bank’s rise and then devoured the decimated bank in its final days. Written as compellingly as the finest fiction, The Lost Bank makes it clear that the collapse of Washington Mutual was not just the largest bank failure in American history. It is a story of talismanic qualities, reflecting the incredible rise and the precipitous collapse of not only an institution but of trust, fortunes, and the marketplaces for risk across the world.

    Schwarzman, a long-awaited book that uses impactful episodes from Schwarzman's life to show readers how to build, transform, and lead thriving organizations. Whether you are a student, entrepreneur, philanthropist, executive, or simply someone looking for ways to maximize your potential, the same lessons apply.People know who Stephen Schwarzman is—at least they think they do. He’s the man who took $400,000 and co-founded Blackstone, the investment firm that manages over $500 billion (as of January 2019). He’s the CEO whose views are sought by heads of state. He’s the billionaire philanthropist who founded Schwarzman Scholars, this century’s version of the Rhodes Scholarship, in China. But behind these achievements is a man who has spent his life learning and reflecting on what it takes to achieve excellence, make an impact, and live a life of consequence. Folding handkerchiefs in his father’s linen shop, Schwarzman dreamed of a larger life, filled with purpose and adventure. His grades and athleticism got him into Yale. After starting his career in finance with a short stint at a financial firm called DLJ, Schwarzman began working at Lehman Brothers where he ascended to run the mergers and acquisitions practice. He eventually partnered with his mentor and friend Pete Peterson to found Blackstone, vowing to create a new and different kind of financial institution. Building Blackstone into the leading global financial institution it is today didn’t come easy. Schwarzman focused intensely on culture, hiring great talent, and establishing processes that allow the firm to systematically analyze and evaluate risk. Schwarzman’s simple mantra “don’t lose money” has helped Blackstone become a leading private equity and real estate investor, and manager of alternative assets for institutional investors globally. Both he and the firm are known for the rigor of their investment process, their innovative approach to deal making, the diversification of their business lines, and a conviction to be the best at everything they do. Schwarzman is also an active philanthropist, having given away more than a billion dollars. In philanthropy, as in business, he is drawn to situations where his capital and energy can be applied to drive transformative solutions and change paradigms, notably in education. He uses the skills learned over a lifetime in finance to design, establish, and support impactful and innovative organizations and initiatives. His gifts have ranged from creating a new College of Computing at MIT for the study of artificial intelligence, to establishing a first-of-its-kind student and performing arts center at Yale, to enabling the renovation of the iconic New York Public Library, to founding the Schwarzman Scholars fellowship program at Tsinghua University in Beijing—the single largest philanthropic effort in China’s history from international donors. Schwarzman’s story is an empowering, entertaining, and informative guide for anyone striving for greater personal impact. From deal making to investing, leadership to entrepreneurship, philanthropy to diplomacy, Schwarzman has lessons for how to think about ambition and scale, risk and opportunities, and how to achieve success through the relentless pursuit of excellence. Schwarzman not only offers readers a thoughtful reflection on all his own experiences, but in doing so provides a practical blueprint for success.

    The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as “The Oracle of Omaha.”Although the media track him constantly, Buffett himself has never told his full life story. His reality is private, especially by celebrity standards. Indeed, while the homespun persona that the public sees is true as far as it goes, it goes only so far. Warren Buffett is an array of paradoxes. He set out to prove that nice guys can finish first. Over the years he treated his investors as partners, acted as their steward, and championed honesty as an investor, CEO, board member, essayist, and speaker. At the same time he became the world’s richest man, all from the modest Omaha headquarters of his company Berkshire Hathaway. None of this fits the term “simple.”When Alice Schroeder met Warren Buffett she was an insurance industry analyst and a gifted writer known for her keen perception and business acumen. Her writings on finance impressed him, and as she came to know him she realized that while much had been written on the subject of his investing style, no one had moved beyond that to explore his larger philosophy, which is bound up in a complex personality and the details of his life. Out of this came his decision to cooperate with her on the book about himself that he would never write.Never before has Buffett spent countless hours responding to a writer’s questions, talking, giving complete access to his wife, children, friends, and business associates—opening his files, recalling his childhood. It was an act of courage, as The Snowball makes immensely clear. Being human, his own life, like most lives, has been a mix of strengths and frailties. Yet notable though his wealth may be, Buffett’s legacy will not be his ranking on the scorecard of wealth; it will be his principles and ideas that have enriched people’s lives. This book tells you why Warren Buffett is the most fascinating American success story of our time.

    This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time-the engine of globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world. Low price is so alluring that we may have forgotten how thoroughly we once distrusted it. Ellen Ruppel Shell traces the birth of the bargain as we know it from the Industrial Revolution to the assembly line and beyond, homing in on a number of colorful characters, such as Gene Verkauf (his name is Yiddish for "to sell"), founder of E. J. Korvette, the discount chain that helped wean customers off traditional notions of value. The rise of the chain store in post-Depression America led to the extolling of convenience over quality, and big-box retailers completed the reeducation of the American consumer by making them prize low price in the way they once prized durability and craftsmanship. The effects of this insidious perceptual shift are vast: a blighted landscape, escalating debt (both personal and national), stagnating incomes, fraying communities, and a host of other socioeconomic ills. That's a long list of charges, and it runs counter to orthodox economics which argues that low price powers productivity by stimulating a brisk free market. But Shell marshals evidence from a wide range of fields-history, sociology, marketing, psychology, even economics itself-to upend the conventional wisdom. Cheap also unveils the fascinating and unsettling illogic that underpins our bargain-hunting reflex and explains how our deep-rooted need for bargains colors every aspect of our psyches and social lives. In this myth-shattering, closely reasoned, and exhaustively reported investigation, Shell exposes the astronomically high cost of cheap.

    But it is much more than that, too. It is a public ledger to which everyone has access, but which no single person controls. It allows for companies and individuals to collaborate with an unprecedented degree of trust and transparency. It is cryptographically secure, but fundamentally open. And soon it will be everywhere.In Blockchain Revolution, Don and Alex Tapscott reveal how this game-changing technology will shape the future of the world economy, dramatically improving everything from healthcare records to online voting, and from insurance claims to artist royalty payments. Brilliantly researched and highly accessible, this is the essential text on the next major paradigm shift. Read it, or be left behind.

    The exception was Merrill Lynch, a firm that revolutionized the stock market by bringing Wall Street to Main Street, setting up offices in far-flung cities and towns long ignored by the giants of finance. With its "thundering herd" of financial advisers, perhaps no other business, whether in financial services or elsewhere, so epitomized the American spirit. Merrill Lynch was not only "bullish on America," it was a big reason why so many average Americans were able to grow wealthy by investing in the stock market. Merrill Lynch was an icon. Its sudden decline, collapse, and sale to Bank of America was a shock. How did it happen? Why did it happen? And what does this story of greed, hubris, and incompetence tell us about the culture of Wall Street that continues to this day even though it came close to destroying the American economy? A culture in which the CEO of a firm losing $28 billion pushes hard to be paid a $25 million bonus. A culture in which two Merrill Lynch executives are guaranteed bonuses of $30 million and $40 million for four months' work, even while the firm is struggling to reduce its losses by firing thousands of employees. Based on unparalleled sources at both Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, Greg Farrell's "Crash of the Titans" is a Shakespearean saga of three flawed masters of the universe. E. Stanley O'Neal, whose inspiring rise from the segregated South to the corner office of Merrill Lynch--where he engineered a successful turnaround--was undone by his belief that a smooth-talking salesman could handle one of the most difficult jobs on Wall Street. Because he enjoyed O'Neal's support, this executive was allowed to build up an astonishing $30 billion position in CDOs on the firm's balance sheet, at a time when all other Wall Street firms were desperately trying to exit the business. After O'Neal comes John Thain, the cerebral, MIT-educated technocrat whose rescue of the New York Stock Exchange earned him the nickname "Super Thain." He was hired to save Merrill Lynch in late 2007, but his belief that the markets would rebound led him to underestimate the depth of Merrill's problems. Finally, we meet Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, a street fighter raised barely above the poverty line in rural Georgia, whose "my way or the highway" management style suffers fools more easily than potential rivals, and who made a $50 billion commitment over a September weekend to buy a business he really didn't understand, thus jeopardizing his own institution. The merger itself turns out to be a bizarre combination of cultures that blend like oil and water, where slick Wall Street bankers suddenly find themselves reporting to a cast of characters straight out of the "Beverly Hillbillies." BofA's inbred culture, which perceived New York banks its enemies, was based on loyalty and a good-ol'-boy network in which competence played second fiddle to blind obedience."Crash of the Titans" is a financial thriller that puts you in the theater as the historic events of the financial crisis unfold and people responsible for billion of dollars of other people's money gamble recklessly to enhance their power and their paychecks or to save their own skins. Its wealth of never-before-revealed information and focus on two icons of corporate America make it the book that puts together all the pieces of the Wall Street disaster.

    Buy it and read it." -Kenneth L. Fisher Forbes The runaway bestseller-updated with new material included for the first time! "The Warren Buffett Way outlines his career and presents examples of how his investment techniques and methods evolved and the important individuals in that process. It also details the key investment decisions that produced his unmatched record of performance." -from the Foreword by Peter S. Lynch Bestselling author, One Up on Wall Street and Beating the Street ." . . an extraordinarily useful account of the methods of an investor held by many to be the world's greatest." -The Wall Street Journal "Robert Hagstrom presents an in-depth examination of Warren Buffett's strategies, and the 'how and why' behind his selection of each of the major securities that have contributed to his remarkable record of success. His 'homespun' wisdom and philosophy are also part of this comprehensive, interesting, and readable book." -John C. Bogle Chairman, The Vanguard Group "It's first rate. Buffett gets a lot of attention for what he preaches, but nobody has described what he practices better than Hagstrom. Here is the lowdown on every major stock he ever bought and why he bought it. Fascinating. You could even try this at home." -John Rothchild Financial columnist Time magazine

    First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident." --Arthur SchopenhauerThe Ponzi Factor is the most comprehensive research ever compiled on the negative-sum nature of capital gains (non-dividend stocks). The book shows why, as a whole, ALL investors will lose money from buying and selling stocks.Most people don’t realize that profits from buying and selling stocks come from other investors who are also buying and selling stocks. When one investor buys low and sells high, another investor is also buying high and needs to sell for even higher. Companies like Google, Telsa, Facebook never pay their investors. Their investors’ profits are dependent on the inflow of money from new investors, which by definition, is how a Ponzi scheme works.This book is not for everyone. If you are a finance junkie who wants to rationalize why companies don’t have to pay their investors and believe a system that shuffles money between investor can magically create more money than people contribute, then this book is not for you. On the other hand, if you understand why we can’t create money by shuffling it with imaginary paper, and that investors invest because they want money, not value, then you will learn something you will never forget: The mechanics of how the stock market works and what really makes a stock price move.A stock without dividends is a Ponzi asset. It’s not how equity instruments were designed to work historically and not how ownership instruments are supposed to work logically. The Ponzi Factor is not a perspective or an opinion. It is a proof that is based on definition, logic, and it is supported by observable facts and history. This is not a story that will disappear after another market crash. It is an idea that will remain relevant for as long as the stock market exists.Lastly, to critics, the naysayer, and the finance junkies who think the imaginary value = cash. The author will award $20,000 to anyone who can show why non-dividend stocks DO NOT meet the definition of a Ponzi scheme. That’s $20,000 in cash, not value. (Details on this book's website. The Ponzi Factor. Proof by Definition.)

    It's about how the Scientific Revolution intertwined with finance to set England--and the world--off in an entirely new direction.At the dawn of the eighteenth century, England was running out of money due to a prolonged war with France. Parliament tried raising additional funds by selling debt to its citizens, taking in money now with the promise of interest later. It was the first permanent national debt, but still they needed more. They turned to the stock market--a relatively new invention itself--where Isaac Newton's new mathematics of change over time, which he applied to the motions of the planets and the natural world, were fast being applied to the world of money. What kind of future returns could a person expect on an investment today? The Scientific Revolution could help. In the hub of London's stock market--Exchange Alley--the South Sea Company hatched a scheme to turn pieces of the national debt into shares of company stock, and over the spring of 1720 the plan worked brilliantly. Stock prices doubled, doubled again, and then doubled once more, getting everyone in London from tradespeople to the Prince of Wales involved in money mania that consumed the people, press, and pocketbooks of the empire.Unlike science, though, with its tightly controlled experiments, the financial revolution was subject to trial and error on a grand scale, with dramatic, sometimes devastating, consequences for people's lives. With England at war and in need of funds and "stock-jobbers" looking for any opportunity to get in on the action, this new world of finance had the potential to save the nation--but only if it didn't bankrupt it first.

    The book shifts focus from forces that drive markets to forces that drive successful trades. The robust performance of this approach has inspired the subtitle 'A Magic Sword of Necessity'. If you think of investing as a rigorous intellectual battle, you need to prepare for it thoroughly. Get in proper shape. Learn your moves, acquire your armor, your shield, your helmet and your battle horse. A magic weapon will be wasted if you get killed by the market's first arrow. Every chapter in this book represents a step towards mastering the sword of necessity. Taking each of those steps has its own merit. Both aspiring and experienced investors can find value in this book long before the advanced concepts, such as "necessity" and "dominance," are fully introduced. And with complete training and equipment, this weapon may give you a devastating advantage.

    By the nineteenth century British economist and author of The English Constitution. A valuable financial work.

    In Markets Never Forget But People Do: How Your Memory Is Costing You Money and Why This Time Isn't Different, long-time Forbes columnist, CEO of Fisher Investments, and 4-time New York Times bestselling author Ken Fisher shows how and why investors' memories fail them--and how costly that can be. More important, he shows steps investors can take to begin reducing errors they repeatedly make. The past is never indicative of the future, but history can be one powerful guide in shaping forward looking expectations. Readers can learn how to see the world more clearly--and learn to make fewer errors--by understanding just a bit of investing past.

    . . Invest Like Warren Buffett. But is it really possible for anyone to learn to invest like Warren Buffett? Don't I need insider information and a network of rich friends? Surprisingly not. Buffett's investment strategy can be imitated by anyone, with any size account. This book will lead you every step of the way, in easy-to-understand language. I have studied Warren Buffett and his investments for over 20 years. Over that time, I have distilled Buffett's most valuable investing insights into an easy-to-follow program. It's time to learn a proven strategy that takes the stress out of investing. In this book, you will learn: How to compound wealth like Buffett Sneaky tricks for decoding financial statements How to tell the difference between a great business and a mediocre business How to figure out how much to pay for a high-quality stock The best times to buy stocks Investing pitfalls to avoid How to profit from bear markets, instead of getting destroyed The beauty of the Buffett approach is its simplicity. Imagine how relaxed you will feel when you learn how to invest with a Zen-like calm, like Buffett himself. Amazon best-selling author and retired hedge fund manager, Matthew Kratter will teach you the secrets that he has used to profitably invest in stocks for the last 20 years, following Buffett's methods. Buffett's strategy is powerful, and yet so simple to use. Even if you are a complete beginner, this book will quickly bring you up to speed. And if you ever get stuck, you can always reach out to me by email (provided inside of the book), and I will help you. Are you ready to start growing your money today? Then scroll to the top of this page and click BUY NOW.

    Whether you’re working with a few dollars a week or a significant inheritance, Bach’s nine-step program gives you tools for spending wisely, establishing security, and aligning money with your values. Plus, in this completely revised and updated edition, David Bach includes critical new long-term investment advice, information on teaching your kids about money, Internet resources, and new ways to attract greater wealth–personal and financial–into your life.

    This is usually because the right questions are not asked. In the world of investing, where honest and common sense advice is scarce, here is a book that simplifies key concepts in money management and guides you to invest with a specific goal in mind. ‘You can be rich –With Goal Based Investing’ arms you with the relevant questions to ask. It also gives you access to a bouquet of practical yet enlightening calculators that enable you develop personalized investment solutions. If used regularly, these mirror the progress of your investment plans and help you gauge if are going in the intended direction. Investors who have the discipline to follow the simple steps suggested in this book could attain results that are vastly superior to even those achieved by professionals. Most importantly, successfully securing goals due to appropriate investing delivers an improved life with more time to spend on what is really important for you and your loved ones.. If you are in the process of creating wealth – irrespective of whether you are a beginner, mid-way through your journey or almost there – you can find nuggets of simple, practical wisdom in the pages of this book.