Business World

With the Federal Reserve stepping in to rescue global insurance giant AIG (AIG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) this week, one title must have looked particularly prescient to judges drawing up a shortlist for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

“When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change” (McGraw-Hill), by Mohamed El-Erian, contends that the world financial system is in a period of deep change, as emerging economies like China and India bump up against the United States and Europe.

The result is market turmoil, leading to such events as the rescue of AIG and U.S. mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

“This bumpy process is nothing less than a collision of markets, where the markets of yesterday collide with those of tomorrow,” writes El-Erian, co-CEO of PIMCO, which runs the world’s biggest bond fund.

An even bigger figure in the financial markets is the subject of another of the six books on the shortlist http://payday-faxless.com cash advance loan. Warren Buffett has never written a memoir, but he has given former insurance industry analyst Alice Schroeder unprecedented access to write “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” (Bantam).

“Life is like a snowball,” Schroeder writes, quoting the Oracle of Omaha’s famous homespun wisdom. “The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill.”

“Cold Steel: The Multibillion Dollar Battle for a Global Industry” (Little Brown), by Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey, chronicles how Lakshmi Mittal fought for control of Arcelor and transformed the global steel industry through consolidation.

Journalist and historian Misha Glenny spent three years following gun runners in Ukraine, money launderers in Dubai, drug syndicates in Canada, cyber-criminals in Brazil and others to write “McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld” (Knopf), a tale of the growing shadow economy. 

Read more