Author: Kate Kelly File Type: epub Commodity players are a shrewd andindomitable lot. And the contracts theytrade are still so loosely regulated that thecorrect combination of money and skillcreates irresistible opportunity. Thats whyIm only half joking when I call them thesecret club that runs the world. When most people think of the drama of globalfinance, they think of stocks and bonds, venturecapital, high-tech IPOs, and complex mortgagebackedsecurities. But commodities? Crude oil andsoybeans? Copper and wheat? What could be moreboring? Thats exactly what the elite commodity traderswant you to think. They dont seek the mediaspotlight. They dont want to be as famous asWarren Buffett or Bill Gross. Their astonishingwealth was created in near-total obscurity, becausethey dwelled either in closely held private companiesor deep within large banks and corporations,where commodity profits and losses werentbroken out. But if the individual participants in the greatcommodities boom of the 2000s went unnoticed,their impact did not. Over several years the sizeof the market exploded, and so did prices for rawmaterialsraising serious questions about whetherthe big traders were intentionally jacking up thecost of gasoline, food, and other essentials boughtby ordinary people around the world. What wasreally driving all those price spikes? Now Kate Kelly, the bestselling author ofStreet Fighters, takes us inside this secretive innercircle that controls so many things we all dependon. She gets closer than any previous reporter tounderstanding these whip-smart, aggressive, andoften egomaniacal men (yes, they are nearly allmen). They work hard, play hard, flaunt theirwealth, and bet millions every day on a blend offacts, analysis, and pure gut instinct. Kellys narrative focuses on one of the mostextraordinary periods in financial history. Thoughthe practice of gaming out price changes in commoditiesgoes back to ancient Mesopotamia, it hadnever before reached the extremes of the early tomid-2000s. Kelly exposes the role of the hedgefunds, banks, brokers, and regulators in this volatilemarket, through fascinating stories of secretclub members such as . . .ullPierre Andurand, a self-made multimillionairewho generated the winningest annual performanceever for an oil trader in 2008 and hiredElton John to perform at his wedding.llIvan Glasenberg, whose secretive Swiss commoditiesgiant, Glencore, founded by the infamousAmerican fugitive Marc Rich, orchestrateda massive merger with the help of former UKprime minister Tony Blair.llJon Ruggles, a brash know-it-allrecruitedby Delta Air Lines to revitalize the airlines fuel hedgingbusiness, he continued to make tradesin his personal account, a questionable practicegiven his position.lulDrawing on her exclusive access to the secret club,and following the trail from New York to Houston,London, Dubai, and beyond, Kelly reveals theimmense power in the hands of a few, and theso-far contentious efforts by the Obama administrationto rein in the cowboys.**

Author: Jane Austen File Type: pdf

Author: Megan Leitch File Type: epub Romancing Treason addresses the scope and significance of the secular literary culture of the Wars of the Roses, and especially of the Middle English romances that were distinctively written in prose during this period. Megan Leitch argues that the pervasive textual presence of treason during the decades c.1437-c.1497 suggests a way of conceptualising the understudied space between the Lancastrian literary culture of the early fifteenth century and the Tudor literary cultures of the early and mid-sixteenth century. Drawing upon theories of political discourse and interpellation, and of the power of language to shape social identities, this book explores the ways in which, in this textual culture, treason is both a source of anxieties about community and identity, and a way of responding to those concerns. Despite the context of decades of civil war, treason is an understudied theme even with regards to Thomas Malorys celebrated prose romance, the Morte Darthur. Leitch accordingly provides a double contribution to Malory criticism by addressing the Morte Darthurs engagement with treason, and by reading the Morte in the hitherto neglected context of the prose romances and other secular literature written by Malorys English contemporaries. This book also offers new insights into the nature and possibilities of the medieval romance genre and sheds light on understudied texts such as the prose Siege of Thebes and Siege of Troy, and the romances William Caxton translated from French. More broadly, this book contributes to reconsiderations of the relationship between medieval and early modern culture by focusing on a comparatively neglected sixty-year interval -- the interval that is customarily the dividing line, the no mans land between well--but separately-studied periods in English literary studies. **

Author: Ulises Mejias File Type: pdf