The Money Lenders

by Anthony Sampson

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670211060
• ISBN13: 9780670211067
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Trail of Money

John Kenneth Galbraith called this book "a source of first-rate information for the layman and a fine cautionary tale for bankers."This fascinating book about the world of big-time banking is by the same author who published previously a study of major oil companies (The Seven Sisters) and the trade in international arms (The Arms Bazaar).While this book was first published a while ago now, in the early eighties, I find that most of the material is not dated. The machinations of the world's "superbankers" is about the same today as this author expertly describes.Recommended for all readers interested in finance and business, particularly on a world scale.

Excellent vulgarization.

Although part of this book is out of date, it is still an interesting look into the dealings of the international banking community.The author begins with a survey of the most important events in world monetary matters: the creation of the big banks in the Middle Ages, the crash of 1929, the foundation of the IMF, floating exchange rates, the power of OPEC.The second part are comments and analyses of events in the nineteen seventies and eighties of the past century:- The New York City debt crisis (as Walter Wriston put it: We have also our LDC's : our least developed cities)- the recycling of the OPEC money surplus (Paul Erdman: What the Arabs cleverly have done is to put the New York banks in the front row of risk. In other words, if Zaire goes kaput, Chase Manhattan is in trouble.)- the credit card business (one Korean business man built a whole apartment block on one card)- OPEC: Milton Friedman predicted that the OPEC cartel would soon break up.An interesting read, not only for historians.