Author Description

In an eerie echo of 1929's Black Thursday, which signaled the beginning of the Great Depression, March 27, 1980, was dubbed Silver Thursday by a very fightened Wall Street. The silver futures market had collapsed, nearly destroying the entire commodities market and several major banks. In a tour de force of investigative reporting, Stephen Fay exposes he complex set of circumstances and the extraordinary cast of characters behind the near disaster. At the center were the notorious Texas oil billionaires Bunker and Herbert Hunt. Enlisting the help of wealthy Arabs and bankers worldwide, the Hunts wheeled and dealed an audacious -- and near-perfect --attempt to corner the world's silver. Had they succeeded, they would have had unprecedented control over world finances, with almost unimaginable consequences for us all. Taking the reader on a dramatic, at times comic, at times horrifying, journey from Dallas to the commodities markets in New York and Chicago, from Washington, D.C., to Saudi Arabia, "Beyond Greed" shows just how the Hunts' plan got as far as it did -- and why the commodities markets are still gravely vulnerable. It could happen again.