
Money and Power
How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World
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Narrated by:
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Rob Shapiro
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By:
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William D. Cohan
About this listen
The best-selling author of the acclaimed House of Cards and The Last Tycoons turns his spotlight on to Goldman Sachs and the controversy behind its success.
From the outside, Goldman Sachs is a perfect company. The Goldman PR machine loudly declares it to be smarter, more ethical, and more profitable than all of its competitors. Behind closed doors, however, the firm constantly straddles the line between conflict of interest and legitimate deal making, wields significant influence over all levels of government, and upholds a culture of power struggles and toxic paranoia.
And its clever bet against the mortgage market in 2007 - unknown to its clients - may have made the financial ruin of the Great Recession worse. Money and Power reveals the internal schemes that have guided the bank from its founding through its remarkable windfall during the 2008 financial crisis.
Through extensive research and interviews with the inside players, including current CEO Lloyd Blankfein, William Cohan constructs a nuanced, timely portrait of Goldman Sachs, the company that was too big - and too ruthless - to fail.
©2011 William D. Cohan (P)2011 Random HouseListeners also enjoyed...
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The author needs an outline or timeline
- By Stephanie on 12-19-10
By: Greg Farrell
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Four Friends
- Promising Lives Cut Short
- By: William D. Cohan
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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William D. Cohan has proven to be one of the most meticulous and intrepid journalists covering the world of Wall Street and high finance. In his utterly original new audiobook, Four Friends, he brings all of his brilliant reportorial skills to a subject much closer to home: four friends of his who died young. All four attended Andover, the most elite of American boarding schools, before spinning out into very different orbits. Indelibly, using copious interviews from wives, girlfriends, colleagues, and friends, Cohan brings these men to life.
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Master Storyteller
- By Ella on 07-12-19
By: William D. Cohan
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Chasing Goldman Sachs
- By: Suzanne McGee
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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How did Wall Street become a self-serving and ultimately destructive profit machine that imploded? Wall Street's real job is to be our "financial utility"---good financial plumbers that funnel capital to companies so the economy can expand and create jobs and also provide the means for individual investors to build portfolios that will increase personal wealth.
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Wasted Read
- By Reg on 07-09-10
By: Suzanne McGee
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Pyramid of Lies
- The Prime Minister, the Banker and the Billion Pound Scandal
- By: Duncan Mavin
- Narrated by: Duncan Mavin
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In March 2021, an obscure financial technology company called Greensill Capital collapsed, going into administration. As it unravelled, a multibillion-dollar scandal emerged that would shake the very foundations of the British political system, drawing in swiss bankers, global CEOs, and world leaders, including former British Prime Minister, David Cameron. At the centre was an Australian financier named Lex Greensill. Pyramid of Lies charts the meteoric rise and spectacular downfall of Greensill and his company.
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Could not quite get into it
- By Andrew M. on 05-29-23
By: Duncan Mavin
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Conspiracy of Fools
- A True Story
- By: Kurt Eichenwald
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 30 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Say the name 'Enron' and most people believe they've heard all about the story that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. But in the hands of Kurt Eichenwald, the players we think we know and the business practices we think have been exposed are transformed into entirely new, and entirely gripping, material.
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Great Story
- By Adam M Pokorski on 06-06-06
By: Kurt Eichenwald
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Andrew Carnegie
- By: David Nasaw
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 32 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The Scottish-born son of a failed weaver and a mother who supported the family by binding shoes, Andrew Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream. In his rise from a job as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory to being the richest man in the world, he was single-minded, relentless and a major player in some of the most violent and notorious labor strikes of the time. The prototype of today's billionaire, he was a visionary in the way he earned his money and in the way he gave it away.
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Andrew Carnegie
- By Peggie on 10-01-07
By: David Nasaw
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All the Devils Are Here
- The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
- By: Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers? According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, the real answer is all of the above-and more. Many devils helped bring hell to the economy.
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Excellent!
- By Euri on 11-19-10
By: Bethany McLean, and others
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Too Big to Fail
- The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves
- By: Andrew Ross Sorkin
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times reporter. Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true, behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami.
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Best Book About Meltdown
- By Chuck on 12-08-09
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When Genius Failed
- The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
- By: Roger Lowenstein
- Narrated by: Roger Lowenstein
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Abridged
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Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
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When Genius Failed
- By Sean on 12-17-08
By: Roger Lowenstein
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The Smartest Guys in the Room
- The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
- By: Bethany McLean
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 22 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive volume on Enron's amazing rise and scandalous fall, from an award-winning team of Fortune investigative reporters.
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An excellent book, but with a missing chapter
- By Augustus T. White on 03-07-12
By: Bethany McLean
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Lords of Finance
- The Bankers Who Broke the World
- By: Liaquat Ahamed
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.
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interesting insight into interwar period!
- By Toru on 11-27-09
By: Liaquat Ahamed
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Kochland
- The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America
- By: Christopher Leonard
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Just as Steve Coll told the story of globalization through ExxonMobil and Andrew Ross Sorkin told the story of Wall Street excess through Too Big to Fail, Christopher Leonard’s Kochland uses the extraordinary account of how the biggest private company in the world grew to be that big to tell the story of modern corporate America.
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An anti-capitalism treatise
- By Luis on 10-01-19
What listeners say about Money and Power
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Paul Hall
- 12-28-16
Good book on Goldman
good book about Goldman and the part they had in most of the financial problems in this country.
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- Gerard Stevenson
- 08-04-22
Goldman Sachs
Right on the edge of legality. And the revolving door of government will always include a Goldman alum.
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Overall
- Mark
- 06-15-11
Much better than expected
After seeing the title and hearing the author interviewed on the Daily Show, I almost didnt buy it. I expected it to be an over-simplistic scape-goating of a very complicated financial crisis on one institution that has done things to make itself an easy target. Listening to the introduction reinforced my fears and, if I hadnt spent 2 credits, I might have given up at the end of the introduction.
But, the heart of the book is very-well researched and gives an incredibly textured picture of many of the events it describes. The 1st 3 parts deal with the history of Goldman up until the recent financial crisis. if you are a major Wall Street history buff and have read the memoirs of the key players & other Goldman histories, a fair amount of this might seem repetitive. But, if you are a normal human being, Cohan offers a very well-written narrative of the firm's history that would require you to read a number of other books to get elsewhere.
The 4th part deals with the current (recent?) financial crisis. Despite the title and the intro, it does a great job detailing Goldman's role and showing how many of the things Goldman did limited the magnitude of the crisis and, in fact, represented best financial practices. The reason they made so much money is that almost no one else was behaving rationally. Goldman was early to understand the house of cards on which CDOs rested and they marked their assets accordingly. Though often blamed for causing the crisis, this actually had the effect of holding Wall Street back from even greater irrational exuberance which would have led to an even bigger crisis down the road. Sure some Goldman individuals may have engaged in specific questionable activities, and Cohan doesn't ignore this, but Cohan does a good job of showing how weak the causal relationship between a couple shady decisions and the crisis really is.
The real scandal is that everything Goldman did was LEGAL and Cohan's book gives a textured picture of that.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Michael Moore
- 01-15-14
How Goldman Made it Thru the Financial Meltdown
The reason to buy this book is for the detailed insights you gain as to how Goldman (alone among the major Wall Street banks) actually prospered during the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The author has done a fine job of describing the key events and decisions that started in December 2006: the push by its mortgage trading desk for authority to put on large short positions when it recognized early signs of serious problems ahead; actions by top management to move early and decisively to reduce long exposure in the subprime mortgage market; and the discipline and focus on risk management at top management levels that forced realistic “mark to market” prices for the mortgage backed securities on its books. As one of the people the author interviewed in research for the book put it, had the other Wall Street banks taken actions similar to what Goldman did, we would not have had a financial crisis in 2008. (That comment, by the way, does not in my view absolve Goldman in any way of irresponsibility for being a large marketer and seller of “subprime” mortgage backed securities prior to 2007. Such securities were based on underlying collateral that was frankly ridiculous and a lasting shame to the parties who originated them, the Wall Street banks who sold them, the ratings agencies who gave them absurd “AAA” ratings, and the federal regulators who simply sat back and watched it all happen.)
The rest of the book is not of the same quality, although it does have a good overview of the history and evolution of Goldman Sachs, including a number of the major leadership figures in the firm over its history as well as bumps in the road it has had to navigate over time. He also includes a number of less well documented impressions of Goldman gathered from competitors, the press, and Congress—many of whom are frankly somewhat dubious sources as to the actual facts. Such sources do, however, serve as good illustrations of why Goldman has suffered some major blows to its public reputation over the past few years.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Chris
- 09-29-15
Great
Absolutely fantastic. Great book, wonderful reading. It gives a great history of a pillar of modern America.
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- R. Winchester
- 05-17-21
Very insightful - though last section lacking
I believe that everything reported on Hank Paulson and earlier is very insightful it’s funny that Blankfein’s time is just kind of written by a PR department. Maybe that’s an effect of the 2008 issues but it might show how hard it is to get info on GS. Without the released emails it would have been a very murky tale. Definitely recommend this book in any event
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