[PDF] Gods Bankers eBook

Author : Gerald Posner
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 703 pages
File Size : 49,8 MB
Release : 2015-02-03
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1439109869

GET BOOK

New York Times Bestseller: A “deeply researched” exposé of the money and the clerics-turned-financiers at the heart of the Vatican (Chicago Tribune). From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, God’s Bankers traces the political intrigue of the Catholic Church in “a meticulous work that cracks wide open the Vatican’s legendary, enabling secrecy” (Kirkus Reviews). Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this book is about the church’s accumulation of wealth and its byzantine financial entanglements across the world. Telling the story through two hundred years of prelates, bishops, cardinals, and the popes who oversee it all, Gerald Posner uncovers an eyebrow-raising account of money and power in one of the world’s most influential organizations. God’s Bankers is a revelatory and astounding saga marked by poisoned business titans, murdered prosecutors, and mysterious deaths written off as suicides; a carnival of characters from popes and cardinals to financiers and mobsters to kings and prime ministers; and a set of moral and political circumstances that not only clarify the church’s aims and ambitions, but reflect the larger tensions of more recent history. Posner also assesses Pope Francis’s potential to overcome the resistance to change in the Vatican’s Machiavellian inner court and rein in the excesses of its seemingly uncontrollable financial quagmire. “As exciting as a mystery thriller” (Providence Journal), this book reveals with extraordinary precision how the Vatican has evolved from a foundation of faith to a corporation of extreme wealth and power. “Reads like a sprawling novel, full of complex characters and surprising twists. . . . Readers interested in issues involving religion and international finance will find Posner’s work a compelling read.” —Library Journal “An extraordinarily intricate tale of intrigue, corruption and organized criminality. . . . Posner’s gifts as a reporter and storyteller are most vividly displayed in a series of lurid chapters on the American archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the arch-Machiavellian who ran the Vatican Bank from 1971-1989.” —The New York Times Book Review

Author : Liaquat Ahamed
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 584 pages
File Size : 22,97 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781594201820

GET BOOK

Argues that the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent Depression occurred as a result of poor decisions on the part of four central bankers who jointly attempted to reconstruct international finance by reinstating the gold standard.

Author : Jack Cashill
Publisher : Thomas Nelson
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 20,65 MB
Release : 2010-03-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1418555304

GET BOOK

AMIDST THE WRECKAGE OF FINANCIAL RUIN, PEOPLE ARE LEFT PUZZLING ABOUT HOW IT HAPPENED. WHERE DID ALL THE PROBLEMS BEGIN? For the answer, Jack Cashill, a journalist as shrewd as he is seasoned, looks past the headlines and deep into pages of history and comes back with the goods. From Plato to payday loans, from Aristotle to AIG, from Shakespeare to the Salomon Brothers, from the Medici to Bernie Madoff—in Popes and Bankers Jack Cashill unfurls a fascinating story of credit and debt, usury and “the sordid love of gain.” With a dizzying cast of characters, including church officials, gutter loan sharks, and even the Knights Templar, Cashill traces the creative tension between “pious restraint” and “economic ambition” through the annals of human history and illuminates both the dark corners of our past and the dusty corners of our billfolds.

Author : Frank Sanello
Publisher : Taylor Trade Publishing
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 42,49 MB
Release : 2005-08-26
Category : History
ISBN : 1461635578

GET BOOK

Gives a vivid description about how the Templars were formed as a strict religious-military order, how they got the political and financial power beyond the military power, and their passed down legends.

Author : Sebastian Mallaby
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 497 pages
File Size : 28,12 MB
Release : 2011-05-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1408809753

GET BOOK

Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge-find managers have emerged as the stars of twenty-first century capitalism. Based on unprecedented access to the industry, More Money Than God provides the first authoritative history of hedge funds. This is the inside story of their origins in the 1960s and 1970s, their explosive battles with central banks in the 1980s and 1990s, and finally their role in the financial crisis of 2007-9. Hedge funds reward risk takers, so they tend to attract larger-than-life personalities. Jim Simons began life as a code-breaker and mathematician, co-authoring a paper on theoretical geometry that led to breakthroughs in string theory. Ken Griffin started out trading convertible bonds from his Harvard dorm room. Paul Tudor Jones happily declared that a 1929-style crash would be 'total rock-and-roll' for him. Michael Steinhardt was capable of reducing underlings to sobs. 'All I want to do is kill myself,' one said. 'Can I watch?' Steinhardt responded. A saga of riches and rich egos, this is also a history of discovery. Drawing on insights from mathematics, economics and psychology to crack the mysteries of the market, hedge funds have transformed the world, spawning new markets in exotic financial instruments and rewriting the rules of capitalism. And while major banks, brokers, home lenders, insurers and money market funds failed or were bailed out during the crisis of 2007-9, the hedge-fund industry survived the test, proving that money can be successfully managed without taxpayer safety nets. Anybody pondering fixes to the financial system could usefully start here: the future of finance lies in the history of hedge funds.

Author : Gerald Posner
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 752 pages
File Size : 46,4 MB
Release : 2015-02-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1416576576

GET BOOK

Revealing a history of mysterious deaths, shady characters, and moral and political tensions, exposes the inner workings of the Catholic Church to trace how the Vatican evolved from an institution of faith into an extremely wealthy corporate power. --Publisher's description.

Author : Lee Moller
Publisher : FriesenPress
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 12,85 MB
Release : 2017-06-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1525506803

GET BOOK

The crucifix is in! You can fool most of the people most of the time. In The God Con, Lee Moller, a life-long atheist and skeptic, looks at organized religion through the lens of the con. Organized religion has been selling an invisible product, that it never has to deliver, for thousands of years. It has given us bigotry, rampant pedophilia, terrorism, and bloodshed beyond imagining. And its acolytes have, in turn, given organized religion power over their bank accounts, their reproduction, and their very “souls”.

Author : Lawrence Wright
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 19,12 MB
Release : 2013-04-16
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1439129517

GET BOOK

In this fascinating work of historical fiction, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright captures all the gripping drama and black humor of Panama during the final, nerve-racking days of its legendary dictator, Manuel Antonio Noriega. It is Christmas 1989, and Tony Noriega's demons are finally beginning to catch up with him. A former friend of President Bush, Fidel Castro, and Oliver North, this universally reviled strongman is on the run from the U.S. Congress, the Justice Department, the Colombian mob, and a host of political rivals. In his desperation, he seeks salvation from any and all quarters -- God, Satan, a voodoo priest, even the spirits of his murdered enemies. But with a million-dollar price on his head and 20,000 American soldiers on his trail, Noriega is fast running out of options. Drawn from a historical record more dramatic than even the most artful spy novel, God's Favorite is a riveting and darkly comic fictional account of the events that occurred in Panama from 1985 to the dictator's capture in 1989. With an award-winning journalist's eye for detail, Lawrence Wright leads the reader toward a dramatic face-off in the Vatican embassy, where Noriega confronts his psychological match in the papal nuncio.

Author : Ashok Banker
Publisher : John Joseph Adams
Page : 689 pages
File Size : 25,4 MB
Release : 2019-04
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1328916286

GET BOOK

First of a new epic fantasy series inspired by an ancient Sanskrit epic and Indian mythology, Upon a Burning Throne evokes the expansive world-building and complex twists of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy, and Ken Liu's The Dandelion Dynasty series.