Ken Miller — High Finance - with Neal Wolin

Told from the perspectives of those in and around the pathways of money and power, High Finance is a debut novel that takes us inside one of the most volatile periods in Wall Street's history through the lens of Jed Czincosca, who came to Wall Street from Chicago in 1977 to get rich and rise to the pinnacle of American success.He did what it takes to make it to the top, letting nothing hold him back. While orchestrating multibillion-dollar deals and becoming spectacularly wealthy, Jed binges on pot and alcohol, trades on inside information, cheats on his wife, and becomes one of Wall Street's key players. At the dawn of the new century, with a monomaniacal obsession Jed borrows to buy as many shares of Lehman Brothers as he can get his hands on, only to be wiped out on that fateful September day when Lehman was fed to the wolves. Forced from his four-bedroom duplex on Park Avenue to a cheap rental in the working-class town of Patchogue, is redemption and resurrection for Jed even possible?Through a kaleidoscope of voices--his wife, his British secretary, his Marxist brother, the Lehman "informant," an internal auditor dedicated to Jed's destruction, and others--we come to intimately understand Jed and how the unpredictable external forces to which we are all susceptible shape and define us.The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was a pivotal moment in the 2008 crash of the financial markets that led to job losses, a housing market crisis, and a global recession whose effects are still being felt to this day. In telling the story of one man at the center of this moment, Ken Miller offers us a new perspective on Wall Street in the twenty-first century.Ken Miller is President & CEO of Ken Miller Capital, LLC ("KMC"), a closely held merchant banking firm which invests in early-stage companies. He is the former Vice Chairman of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets and Credit Suisse First Boston. Mr. Miller has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Viacom, Inc., Intelsat Corporation, Kinder Care Learning Centers, CNA Surety, and Loews Corporation. He serves on the board of the National Committee on US-China Relations and PEN America and is an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations.Miller is in conversation with Neal Wolin, a Vice Chairman of Brunswick Group, based in Washington, D.C. Neal has spent his entire professional career – in both the private and public sectors – at the intersection of public policy, business, law and communications. Prior to joining Brunswick, he was Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury from May 2009 until September 2013 – the longest serving in U.S. history – and Acting Secretary of the Treasury in January and February 2013. As Deputy Secretary, Neal served as the Treasury Department’s Chief Operating Officer and supervised all Treasury bureaus and domestic and international policy offices as well as its management, legal, public affairs and congressional affairs functions. He was a key architect of the ObamaAdministration's financial reform plan and played a critical role on international economic matters, working with finance ministries, central banks and major international financial institutions on economic growth, financial reforms and economic sanctionsissues. Neal currently serves on the boards of the following venture-backed private companies: Self Financial, a fintech company that provides tools that help consumers build credit; Jupiter Intelligence, a climate risk analytics company; and Glow, an insurtech company focused on small business insurance.https://politics-prose.com/book/9781646048656?ic_referral=pC6WzVtJRuVCEqfy8QX2JBgtR6icNmq3qFrkhceNvVQwMwV4KJzCPfoIcjv7TtyUsyi7cR4fd8XkA3dfoyJBiNJVSUzim6r5ZLm_b_ouxuwwn5gBWIfN6v0ynigu36LMR6clpgk