Billion dollar whale

the man who fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the world

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Tom Wright: Billion dollar whale (2018)

379 pages

English language

Published Aug. 20, 2018

ISBN:
978-0-316-43650-2
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OCLC Number:
1044629783

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4 stars (16 reviews)

1 edition

Review of 'Billion dollar whale' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

What a whirlwind story of greed, corruption and money. A shadowy Malaysian siphons off literally billions of dollars from a "sovereign wealth fund", making sure to grease the pockets of the Malaysian politicians giving him the money. This book documents his rise and slight fall, documenting some seriously crazy conspicuous spending of Jho Low, from the biggest party ever seen in Las Vegas(!) to an ostentatious beyond belief yacht, literally the 7th largest in the world.

The best quote in the book comes from Jordan Belfort, the scumbag portrayed in The Wolf of Wall Street. A group formed by Low bought the rights to the book and got Scorcese and DiCaprio involved in the project and threw a hugely ridiculous launch party that was completely over the top. It was so crazy it even rang hollow to Belfort, who told his wife "anybody who does this has stolen money. …

Review of 'Billion dollar whale' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The book is well researched, well written, and even entertaining in parts (if you can get passed the outrage and distance yourself). The only issue I have is that at the end of the book, "kleptocracy" and corporate irresponsible behavior is repeated again and again as the source of the problems. The authors vaguely suggest democracy, transparency, and criminal justice action as solutions which I also think are necessary. However, there is a possibility (not mentioned in the book) that the whole system is designed to behave the way it behaves and the main solution is to change the system and not just blame it on corrupt agents. When the behavior is repeated again and again, decades after decades, at some point you should consider it as normal state of the financial system at hand and not just anomalies. But knowing the background of the authors this is not surprising …

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Subjects

  • Swindlers and swindling
  • Fraud
  • Biography

Places

  • United States
  • Wall Street (New York, N.Y.)