The human race created money and finance. But our inventions re-create us. Mankind mistook money—a lubricant of society and human well-being—for an end in itself. Finance, the monetary shadow of real things, came to dominate human reality. Extreme Money tells the story of how this happened—and, in so doing, it tells the story of the modern world.
Bestselling author Satyajit Das draws on 33 years of personal experience at the heart of modern global finance to narrate this story. Das reveals the spectacular, dangerous money games that have generated increasingly massive bubbles of fake growth, Ponzi prosperity, sophistication, and wealth—while endangering the jobs, possessions, and futures of virtually everyone outside the financial industry.
You’ll learn how everything from home mortgages to climate change has become financialized, as vast fortunes are generated by individuals who build nothing of lasting value. Das shows how “extreme money” has become ever more unreal; how “voodoo banking” continues to generate massive phony profits even now; and how a new generation of “Masters of the Universe” has come to dominate the world.
Author Biography : Satyajit Das is an internationally respected expert in finance, with over 30 years' experience. He worked for the "sell side" (banks such as Citicorp Investment Bank and Merrill Lynch), the "buy side" (Treasurer of the TNT Group) and acted as a consultant advising banks, investors, corporations and central banks throughout the world. He has been within touching distance of many of the pivotal events in finance during his long career.
Das presciently anticipated many aspects of the Global Financial Crisis in his 2006 book Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives In a speech that year - The Coming Credit Crash - he argued that: "an informed analysis of the structured credit markets shows that risk is not better spread but more leveraged and (arguably) more concentrated amongst hedge funds and a small group of dealers. This does not improve the overall stability and security of the financial system but exposes it to increased risk of a "crash" during a credit downturn." He has continued to be a respected commentator on developments in the crisis, accurately anticipating many subsequent phases.
He was featured in Charles Ferguson's 2010 Oscar winning documentary Inside Job and a 2009 BBC TV documentary - Tricks with Risk.
Das is the author of many highly regarded books on derivatives and risk management, which are regarded as standard reference works for professional traders. In 2006, he published the international best seller Traders, Guns & Money, a satirical insider's account of derivatives trading. The Financial Times described it as explaining "not only the high-minded theory behind the business and its various products but the sometimes sordid reality of the industry".
His latest book is Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk (2011) described by Nouriel Roubini as: "A true insider's devastating analysis of the financial alchemy of the last 30 years and its destructive consequences. With his intimate first-hand knowledge, Das takes a knife to global finance and financiers to reveal its inner workings without fear or favor."
He appears regularly in the media in the US, Canada, UK, Australian, New Zealand, India and South Africa. His opinion pieces appear in prestigious publications throughout the world including the Financial Times. His blogs can be found on a number of on-line financial sites, including www.wilmott.com, www.roubini.com, www.minyanville.com, www.eurointelligence.com, www.nakedcapitalism.com and www.prudentbear.com
