The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History Audiobook (Free)

The Wall Road Journal’s award-winning business reporter unveils the bizarre and sinister story of what sort of math genius named Tom Hayes, a handful of outrageous confederates, and a deeply corrupt bank operating system ignited one of the biggest financial scandals ever sold.

In 2006, an oddball band of bankers, traders and brokers from a number of the world’s largest financial institutions produced a startling realization: Libor-the London interbank offered price, which determines the interest rates on about The Spider Network: The Crazy Story of the Mathematics Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in CREDIT HISTORY trillions in loans worldwide-was established daily by a little band of easily manipulated functionaries, and that they could reap large profits by nudging it to match their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a outrageous alliance that among others included a French trader nicknamed “Gollum”; the broker “Abbo,” who enjoyed to publicly strip naked when consuming; a Kazakh chicken farmer flipped something lacking monetary whiz kid; an agent referred to as “Village” (short for “Village Idiot”) and captivated by human-animal sex; an executive called “Clumpy” due to his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed “Big Nose.” Eventually known as the “Spider Network,” Hayes’s circle generated untold riches -until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.

The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account from the scam, but a provocative study of a economic climate that was crooked throughout, designed to promote envelope-pushing behavior while shielding higher-ups from the results of their subordinates’ rapacious actions.