The Asylum: Inside the Rise and Ruin of the Global Oil Market
The Asylum is a stunning expose by a seasoned Wall Street journalist that once and for all reveals the truth behind America’s oil addiction in all its unscripted and dysfunctional glory.
In the tradition of Too Big to Fail and Liar’s Poker, author Leah McGrath Goodman tells the amazing-but-true story of a band of struggling, hardscrabble traders who, after enduring decades of scorn from New York’s stuffy financial establishment, overcame more than a century of failure, infighting, and brinksmanship to build the world’s reigning oil empire–entirely by accident.
Reviews
What they’re saying…
“A history of the famous (and infamous) oil-futures marketplace, the Nymex. This is a rollicking, fast-paced, decades-long tale of a marketplace that sprang out of — no kidding — a potato futures market. The pit where most trading took place is still active in New York City, but in just the past few years much of it has moved online, and is handled by computers able to rapidly process reams of data (note that this move hasn’t yielded more stable prices in fact one could argue the opposite case). The reporter, who worked for many years as a Dow Jones reporter covering the market, has many solid relationships with the traders who built the Nymex and this adds a lot of color to the narrative. When the instability of supply and relentless demand drives up price levels and volatility, many of these traders do very well indeed. And when that happens, the partying really kicks into high gear.”
– National Resources Defense Council
reviews
More Praise for The Asylum:
Inside the Rise and Ruin of the Global Oil Market
Bloomberg BusinessWeek
“Finance journalist Goodman traces Nymex’s transformation into a colossus with a stranglehold on the sale of the world’s energy. Goodman explores the lurid culture of Nymex traders, scruffy hustlers who shriek, swear and bring guns, drugs, and hookers right into the trading pit. One of the year’s most colorful business histories.” “
Publishers Weekly
Institutional Investor
“In the complex world of the energy markets where pit trading is a blue-collar profession, Goodman captures the grit and spirit of the floor and the personalities in the board room…her depiction of the players and the place to rings true.”
Reuters
But wait, there’s more
Relate Stories
Predicting the Next Wall Street Disaster
Predicting the Next Wall Street DisasterLeah McGrath GoodmanNewsweekFebruary 12, 2015ouldn't it be great if the U.S. had a heat map of the entire financial system that could alert it to vulnerabilities and approaching calamities before a global...
Is Wall Street Pulling a Fast One?
When members of the House Financial Services Committee grilled Mary Jo White, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), all they wanted to talk about was a book: Michael Lewis’s Flash Boys.
You Know the Drill
The drilling areas are easy to spot. “In the past few years, it has totally taken over the landscape,” says Gordon, executive director of EcoFlight, a nonprofit that sponsors flights over drill sites, forest clear-cuts and strip mines to educate those who don’t get to regularly see the full impact on the land of the energy-extraction process. “The pristine areas are so few now, they really catch your eye,” he said. “You can’t fly 30 minutes in any direction without seeing the wreckage.”