Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
The Asylum: The Renegades Who Hijacked the World's Oil Market
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 secreti...more
Meet the self-anointed kings of the New York Mercantile Exchange. In some ways, they are everything you would expect them to be: a secreti...more
Hardcover, 416 pages
Published
February 15th 2011
by William Morrow
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
88)
Interesting read. Lots of silly trivia that attempts to make NyMex look like a bunch of cowboys, but the 3rd party review of a complex political/economic organization from many different perspectives is very interest. There are some valuable lessons: always tread carefully, always watch your back. You can see that nothing that transpires was remotely "fair", but by being in the right place at the right time, you definitely have a big head start in terms of taking care of yourself.
The moral of th...more
The moral of th...more
I went into The Asyulum with high hopes. Finally a book that exposed the oil futures industry for what it was: a reckless and greedy bunch of traders who systematically gamed the system for profit. Goodman's book provides some of that, but stops far short of what could have been one of the most damning exposes of a dangerous financial system in years. The book is thin on the economics behind the system, which involves traders rapidly buying and selling oil they do not physically posses, and inst...more
It is rare I give a negative review for a book, but feel compelled to do so in this case. If you are buying this book to get a better understanding of how NYMEX affects current oil prices then stare clear as it fails in every way to offer an explanation. Instead this book is like a series of magazine articles on the various characters who made up the NYMEX during its glory years. Notice i write "magazine article"? Thats because even these profiles lack real depth normally found in a book and ins...more
I am surprised I gave this book a 4-star rating due to my frustration and anger with the people and stories of "Corporate America/Wall Street" in this book. It is a stranger than life book that could be made into a movie, which would need an R rating. The greed, idiocy, hubris, and love of power that was characteristic of the majority of the people in this book was beyond frustrating at times. But, it certainly opened my eyes, which is a good thing. A definition of asylum is "an institution offe...more
An interesting account of the rigged oil market. How our elected representatives are complicit in fostering a rigged oil market that is costing the consumers billions, and making a few individuals and financal institutions billions of dollars. A must read for those who are fed up with our elected representaives working for the special interests groups to the detriment thier constituants.
A must-read for anyone either in or on the sidelines of the energy industry. If there was any last remnants of belief that fundamentals rule the energy markets, this portrait of the NYMEX pits and how screen trading as completely overcome the industry, will bury that belief firmly six feet under.
Fuck NYMEX, fuck futures trading. The first 1/4 of this book explains in detail just what is wrong with the oil market and tells you who to blame for gas prices.
Good book thus far. But needed to downsize. Left it with Bastian.
Outstanding analysis on the background and evolution of the Oil futures market. This should required reading for everyone interested in the cause and effect regarding oil prices and the world market
This was recommended to me as a sort of companion book to the Enron story "The Smartest Guys in the Room" but it wasn't as well-written and I gave up.
Commento per gli italiani: un attesissimo libro negli Stati Uniti, una interessante storia da leggere, per chi ama leggere in inglese
Apr 12, 2013
Darla
is currently reading it
Apr 09, 2013
Ariel Burbaickij
marked it as to-read
Apr 05, 2013
Cliff Krimmel
marked it as to-read
Apr 02, 2013
Shana
marked it as to-read
Mar 24, 2013
Sandra
marked it as to-read
Mar 24, 2013
Ben
marked it as to-read
Feb 24, 2013
Dylan Hegh
added it
Feb 18, 2013
Michael
added it
Jan 07, 2013
Carol
marked it as to-read
Jan 06, 2013
Keith
marked it as to-read
Nov 17, 2012
Raúl
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
An award-winning freelance journalist, Leah McGrath Goodman spent a decade in New York and London as an editor, senior writer and special correspondent for Dow Jones & Co., breaking hundreds of stories on the oil market and the New York Mercantile Exchange for the Wall Street Journal and Barron's. She has written for Forbes, Condé Nast Portfolio, the New York Times, the Financial Times and The...more
More about Leah Mcgrath Goodman...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
