Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America Highlight

The scam was a two-part squeeze. Part one was the commodities bubble, a completely avoidable speculative mania that drove oil prices through the roof. It is perhaps the first bubble in history that badly wounded a mighty industrial empire without anyone even realizing it happened. Most Americans do not even know that it took place. That was part of the beauty of the grift—the oil supply crisis that never was.