Relentless endeavor to link the AFL-CIO and postwar labor fuckery to the CIA. All the names, dates, and organizations you'll ever need to understand hRelentless endeavor to link the AFL-CIO and postwar labor fuckery to the CIA. All the names, dates, and organizations you'll ever need to understand how the intelligence apparatus strangled solidarity around the world, especially in South America; in pursuit of empire. Reads like a textbook, which is tough, but you'll get an anecdote just often enough. Great reference for anyone who is wondering what the hell happened to their paid lunch hour....more
The book is good. It could be better. I felt like I was sitting at the bar with the guy listening to the story over beers, definitely a good yarn hereThe book is good. It could be better. I felt like I was sitting at the bar with the guy listening to the story over beers, definitely a good yarn here. It needs editing. Stop reminding me what 703 is. I'm three quarters of the way through the book and you're exhausting me with the reminders. Give me the reminder something like three times, maximum. First third of the book too, by the 75% mark I know damn well that JPMC has an account ending in the numbers 703 that is capable of making some ghoul named alan greenberg nearly have a stroke when asked about it. Let's see what else. Just after the bit about Doctoroff taking over for Cassa there's a mistake. You describe transactions between Levy and Madoff from Manufacturers Hanover and Chemical/JPMC "Bernie would transfer money from to Levy". Is it money from or is it money to? Context saves you if it doesn't get changed but still, you owe me a beer for that one. Don't use the unword "amirite", it's below the rest of the work. It's dumber than Bernie Madoff. Dumber that the SEC. Why did you spend any words defending them? On the subject of the SEC and the characters contained in here, I refuse to believe that you've used real names. Andrew Calamari? Was his partner Bobby Salami? Tommy Tuna was probably on the case as well. Wait there's an Annette Bongiorno? A european guy last name Schon (with the umlaut!). SEC goon named Badway? Alright alright it's too much you got me. I really liked "cell phones were smoking across the city" or whatever that phrase was, that's pretty good. I hope you didn't steal it. Felt like I learned a ton, which is always good. Things like: the SEC badly needs to get their eyeballs checked. These guys keep reading billions as millions, among other things; Basically blow Madoffs crime off until they start getting frantic phone calls. At this point the wife is just pulling ten cool million out of accounts while the SEC wildly proclaims "it can wait until the morning". So much of Madoff's fraud is hilarious, just total farce. First off, he's just forging documents. That's all. But the mendacity is just preposterous. Making more fake trades than the total volume of all trades on the entire market in some given period. Claiming to an investigator that he has less than 20 clients when he has more than 20 family members in on the scheme with accounts. Just stuff that only the blind would miss. SEC allow me to give you a hot tip, if someone is doing impossible things with money to the point that everyone on wallstreet is saying THIS GUY IS DEFINITELY DOING CRIME you should just put on a pair of fucking glasses and dig through the trash at one of their many mansions where you will likely find a piece of paper that says something like FAKE TRADES at the top, followed by a list of fake trades they are making. I clearly had a good time reading this, despite every effort you made to bore me to death in the beginning when you're connecting photos on the wall with red string. It's sort of all over the place but if you cut some of the crap I'd say this thing should be in a library someplace. Would benefit from footnotes telling the reader where they all are now. Don't forget that beer you owe me. 4th star when I get it. NETGALLEY!...more