Lying for Money
by Dan Davies · first published 2018
92% recommend8% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Readable, entertaining survey of many kinds of fraud, using real cases to show how scams exploit trust, why they grow until they collapse, and why the optimal amount of fraud isn't zero. Suits general readers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
.A field guide to fraud and the mechanisms by which it operates in economic systems.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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…Systems (huge fan of this book!) A Short History of Truth (meh...) Man's Search For Meaning (brooo... I am so sorry) Thinking In Bets (meh.. really meh) The Road To Ruin (alright. Interesting even.) Lying For Money (lots of fun!) Great Answers To Tough Interview Questions (what it says on the tin) Traction (good overview of marketing tactics) Lean Customer Development (pretty good) The Mom Test (eye opening)…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗Highly recommend "lying for money" by Dan Davies, a very readable account of a wide range of business frauds.
on “How to Detect Business Fraud” ↗…not in the bank’s interest to do this. But bank employees could’ve been bribed, sure. So this sounds like a form of “long firm fraud” or maybe “control fraud.” For more about it, I recommend reading Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World. (Not that I’m an expert; I just read a book.)
on “Accused money launderers left a path of bankrupt factories” ↗I don't know how it compares to the ones on the list, but I thought Lying for Money by Dan Davies [1] was quite good. I wrote a review last year. [2] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Lying-Money-Legendary-Frauds-Workings... [2] https://tildes.net/~books/w4x/what_are_you_reading_these_day...
on “Books to read to understand financial crime” ↗I would like to recommend Lying for Money by Dan Davies. It covers the workings of several frauds and makes very good points about the necessity of trust.
on “Books to read to understand financial crime” ↗Dan Davies: Lying For Money. This is the book on fraud and how it works, generalised. The author likes the 2021 US edition more, but you should also try to obtain the 2018 UK edition for stories not in the US edition, e.g. the…
on “Books to read to understand financial crime” ↗…email, I periodically get emailed invoices for small painting jobs that I assume come from some scammer thinking I'm in the property management business. As discussed at length in the excellent book "Lying for Money" by Dan Davies, these kinds of scam exploit the trust that exists in the business world and perhaps most destructive in the way that they destroy that trust. Having to spend extra time verifying the provenance…
on “Who’s Behind the ‘Web Listings’ Mail Scam?” ↗In the book Lying for Money (which I recommend to anyone), Dan Davies makes the point that “paying off early investors with later investor’s money” isn’t sufficient to make something a Ponzi because that’s really the nature of nearly…
on “Bernie Madoff has died” ↗…And that’s a basic rule of finance (and fraud): security measures will be bypassed because trusting people is always cheaper and easier, until it fails. I read a fantastic book about this recently: Lying For Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World https://www.amazon.com/Lying-Money-Legendary-Frauds-Workings...
on “Real world ownership is not a use case for blockchain” ↗…the accounting is the product. And if the accounts are fake, the thing is fake. Fake accounts always leave a hole that can only grow with each cycle of fraud. Dan Davies wrote a great book titled "Lying for Money" on the whole sorry process[1]. Galbraith called it the "bezzle". [0] - http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2011/05/steve-madden-count... [1] - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38605195-lying-for-money
on “FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals” ↗…rant that was peppered w/ interesting facts here and there. I put it down years ago with the intent to try again. I've not gotten back to it yet. A book I recommend that does touch on the S&L scandal is Lying for Money (Dan Davies). The Outlaw Bank (Beaty & Gwynne) was also an awesome read. As for the greater topic of white collar crime, it's a key ingredient of the cake, forever to be baked in. My professional advise…
on “The U.S. Needs to Crack Down on White-Collar Crime” ↗…definition is that it’s normal and legitimate for later investors to buy out early investors. You need to know more about what’s really going on to tell whether it’s a fraud or not. Recommended reading: Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World
on “Ethereum: A Store of Value with Cash Flow [pdf]” ↗"Lying For Money" by Dan Davis has several chapters about financial fraud. It's a great read.
on “Launch HN: Bedrock AI (YC S21) – Using ML to identify red flags in SEC filings” ↗From the title, I thought it was a reference to the book Lying for Money by Dan Davis. Anyways, the book is an brilliant exploration of this premise and also makes the case for why trust is necessary.
on “The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero” ↗…a lengthy argument in court (but which court - Bahamas?) as to whether they should have realized this earlier and whether their accounting was deceptive or incompetent. (those interested should read "Lying for Money" by Dan Davies, it's an entertaining and escalating history of fraud)
on “Mass of transactions leaving crypto.com wallets” ↗