Rigged

The Mercantile exchange AKA "The Merc". It's something I knew nothing about and stumbled upon another Ben Mezrich booked titled, "Rigged". It's a true story of an ivy league kid who changed the world of oil from Wall Street to Dubai.

The Mercantile Exchange in New York is the worlds largest physical commodity exchange. What started as the exchange for potatoes it now holds millions of dollars for energy products, metals, and other commodities being bought and sold on the trading floor.

Rigged focuses on oil and the exchange of it. It's known on the Arab street as the "Black Blood of Allah".

David Russo is a young guy that walked into a career he had no idea about. He was raised in Italian ghettos of Brooklyn and Staten Island, he clawed and kicked his way out of that life. He went on to Harvard Graduate School and successfully graduated.

While attending the National Italian American Heritage Institute Dinner to Honor the Italian American Man of the Year, he was introduced to Anthony Giovanni. Anothony Giovanni worked the exchange and during a brief discussion David Russo gave a smart ass reply to something, not really thinking of what he said, and Giovanni gave him his card and told him to call him. It was a dream come true.

David called every day for weeks and never got ahold of him. He was working a low level job in corporate America doing meaningless work every single day.

Finally, he got a call back and Giovanni wanted to meet him. One thing led to another and next thing he knew he took a job for less pay working for Giovanni and his partner on the exchange. The job nearly killed him with long hours and non-stop work. He was given responsibilities and delivered.

Less than a year into the job but what seemed like 20 years Giovanni called him into an empty office and said this is your new office. I am getting out of the Merc and you will be the new VP with my partner. That was an amazing point for David.

His task? Change the way of the Merc. It needed to be computerized and taken to another level. The meat heads (as referred on the floor) were ball busting guys that conducted business the same way for years. This challenge wouldn't be easy.

Shortly into his new position the Merc has an invitation to meet with high ranking officials in Dubai. Nobody could go so they sent David. The story unfolds with him meeting a young man on Dubai that wanted to open up a Merc in Dubai, the middle east! He gets David to buy into it and his task is not go to back to the United States and get them to support a Merc in the middle east, making it even harder were the events of September 11.

The book was great and kept me turning the pages. I learned a lot about the Mercantile Exchange, something I knew nothing about. The snippets about Dubai and the business boom happening has made me want to travel to Dubai to experience it.

I give this book a 4 of 5 stars. It seems I've hit a nice trend of great reads from Ben Mezrich.