Customer Reviews

Riches Among the Ruins: Adventures in the Dark Corners of the Global Economy

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Most self-help teachers advise those seeking success to find a good role model and emulate what they did to achieve success. The idea is that success leaves footprints - steps that others can follow.

Riches Among the Ruins is a great example and Robert Smith would be an excellent role model for others to follow. He finished last in his high school class. But his financial success has allowed him to build a theater and arts center at his high school, a new student center at the college he attended and to renovate the synagogue in his mother's hometown.

The opening sentence of the introduction tells how he lost $15 million in one day. But that did not spell financial ruin for him.

I will not presume to guess the primary motivation for Mr. Smith writing this book. In my mind there are three themes or lessons to be gained from reading it.

The first is a better understanding of foreign currency and the interdependence of world trade. We are all subject to the forces of globalization and having a better understanding of the interdependencies will help us better understand our world and how things fit together.


The second underlying message is what it takes to achieve financial success. While these are not directly addressed, they are the footprints we need to observe is we are going to try to follow his example. Success is often found among the ruins. Doing what everyone else is doing will not separate you from the crowd. If you are going to achieve huge success, you must separate yourself from the crowd. Do what others might find distasteful.

Another success principle that kept driving Bob was he was doing what inspired and motivated him. You will find it tough going to attempt to do things you truly are not interested in doing. He loved the excitement of working in the "ruins". Find what you love to do and do it.

There are many other success principles contained in the book, but I will only touch on one more. The "ruins" represent a major need of others. It is much easier to find financial success if you are fulfilling a major need for a) lots of people or b) one with lots of zeros associated with it.

The third theme of the book is looking at the different countries and the problems they faced and then viewing the path that America is following. We have turned from a creditor to the largest debtor nation. We are on a very dangerous path. While we may not be in immediate danger of becoming a third world country, unless we put our financial house on order - both on the national and the individual level, we may find ourselves there sooner than we expect.

This is a wonderful read. The first 50 or so pages are a little slow because there is so much background information necessary to understand what is going on. After the introduction, it gets to be a real page turner. There are really a number of valuable lessons in the book. It reads like a novel but probably should be studied like a text book. Some of the lessons are a little understated.

Robert has achieved financial success but he now looks at life more philosophical. He wants to share what he has learned with others. He has shared his success formula but he has also shared a view of the more important things in life - purpose.

I highly recommend it.

I was intrigued from the title considering the times we're living in, and I zipped through this well-written, humorous, and interesting book. It reads like an international adventure and is great for someone who is curious about how the world used to work when developing countries teetered near bankruptcy in the 70's and 80's, all told from an entrepreneur's eyes with self-deprecating humility. Especially good book for someone who wants inspiration on starting their own business in the worst of times...

Part exciting adventure thriller, part financial advice, this book reads like an Indiana Jones or Ian Fleming story. Smith takes us through his shenanigans in often war-torn perilous developing countries, where he tried (sometimes successfully and sometimes unsuccessfully) to forge a new financial instrument. Today's huge emerging market industry was shaped by economic frontmen like Smith, and likewise, our nation's woes could utilize the hard lessons learned in the debt-ridden countries where Smith spent the past 30 years doing business.

These days, it seems that all the trading of financial instruments can be done with the click of a mouse using electronic online exchanges. But that's not the way it always was when it came to some of the more esoteric forms of trading, like trading the debt instruments of developing countries. Robert P. Smith was one of the first to play in this niche market and helped form much of what we see today when it comes to debt securities. He shares his stories of life as a global vagabond in the book Riches Among the Ruins: Adventures in the Dark Corners of the Global Economy. With the correct expectations, Riches is an entertaining read and helps shed some light on how financial markets are formed and manipulated.

Smith started out as a collections lawyer working for his father in Boston. He absolutely hated the job, and wanted far more than what his father and mother considered a "good life." This longing led him to sign up for programs that took him overseas to places like Vietnam where he worked for the US government collecting information on the country's economic condition. As he dug deeper, he started to see how countries were crippled by the inability to convert their debt into dollar-based offerings that would allow them to use what few resources they had to start an ongoing flow of capital. Smith worked out how he could buy these debt instruments from the holders for far less than their face value (in order to give the holders something for their investment) and then sell them back to the government for less than the government owed. The spread between those two prices is where his profit would come from. All this was easier said than done, as the holders were generally not compiled in a single list, and there was little transparency in the process. But with persistence and legwork, Smith could often match up buyers and sellers and collect a good return for his efforts.

That's not to say that it was risk-free, however. Along the way, he had partners that double-crossed him, partners that were arrested for fraud, and times when he was personally at risk for millions of dollars if the other party did not honor their agreement. He flew into regions where he was shot at during times of war, as well as taken rides with people that could have ended with a single well-placed bullet. But through all this, he was trying to prove to his wife and father that he was *not* a loser and that he could make a living trading debt securities. And ultimately, he pulled it off and became a pioneer in the debt market.

Smith and his co-writer do a good job in weaving an entertaining story that gives you a flavor for what it must have been like to be on the edge back then. What the book doesn't do is go into minute detail as to how these debt instruments work and the intricacies therein. In other words, if you were to buy this book thinking you would learn all you needed to know about debt trading, you'd be disappointed. You'd learn about it, yes. But the concepts would be in general terms, and the market doesn't work the same way now as it did then during his more harrowing adventures. Keeping that in mind to set your expectations, you can decide if this is the type of book you were looking forward to reading. Working with that information, I found Riches Among the Ruins to be a good read.

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Who says being a banker is steady and boring? Smith paints an image of high wire adventurism that gets more interesting with each chapter (the climax being present day Iraq). Its light on financial theory but makes up for it with practical wisdom on how business gets done in the shady world of emerging market bonds. great summer read!

Finance has never been my area of expertise, but this book triggered a new-found enthusiasm for me. When you think of bonds, you don't think "adventure;" more likely, you imagine staid and boring traders sitting at desks on Wall Street, shouting into phones, wearing pinstripe suits and expensive sunglasses.

The author of this book is about as far from that stereotype as you can imagine, although he does spend his fair share of time arguing on the phone. In his case, those, it's with characters such as Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin, double-dealing Turkish grifters and black-market money changers in war-torn El Salvador. This is the dark, seamy, and thrilling side of international finance.

The book moves along at a fair clip and only lags in a few places. The economics are clearly and concisely explained; I wouldn't call it a manual for trading, by any means, but it's definitely a good way to get a handle on some of the confusing aspects of the global economy. Rather than learn about spreads, basis points, coupons and interest rates in a dull textbook or an MBA class, pick this book up and get your information with a nice fix of adventure.

There's more than just money here; there's also the story of a guy who seems a bit crazy, a bit genius, and completely and totally driven. Ever lost $15 million in a day? Smith has, and he made it all back with sheer nerve. The story jumps nimbly from Brookline to Istanbul to Lagos, and only towards the end does it settle down and slow a little. But that's inevitable, given the fabulous adventures in the first 100 pages. My favorite incident involves a scheme with Lloyds of London in Guatemala that required, if I may say, 'cojones latóns.'

Do yourself a favor. Pick this book up.

This book is about investments, travel, adventure, humor, and more in one book. I loved it. The funny parts alone are with the read, e.g. pages 116-117 when the author sells Guatemalan bonds from the Lloyds Bank by going to their vault, purchasing them, then takes the elevator to sell this same bank these bonds and adds his commission. I can't stop laughing on these two pages; other humorous examples too numerous to mention. He talks about his trips to Vietnam, Nigeria, Russia, Pakistan, Iraq, Panama, Guatemala, as well as sharing his unhappy and experiences and boring life working in his father's law firm. The book is a wonderful read with investment wisdom as well. I am pleased that the author has not only survived the physical dangers, but prospered as well, however he shares both his close calls, failures, and successes.

"Return with much riches to your tents, with very much livestock, with silver, with gold, with bronze, with iron, and with very much clothing. Divide the spoil of your enemies with your brethren." -- Joshua 22:8

Robert P. Smith thrives on going where few would want to be . . . in search of hidden riches that are invisible to almost everyone else. It sounds almost like the beginning of one of Scheherazade's 1001 tales, doesn't it?

The writing about going into dangerous parts of El Salvador, Vietnam, Turkey, Guatemala, Panama, Nigeria, Russia, and Iraq to deal with questionable characters is truly terrific. Even if you don't understand a single word about the financial transactions, you'll revel in feeling the anxiety and threat of those murky dark corners of conflict.

The book has an added benefit: It's an exceptionally clear explanation of the types of obscure securities that are issued in countries that are faltering economically and politically. You'll also get a good sense of the risky paths to riches involved in being an intermediary in bringing buyers and sellers together to exchange dollars.

I thought that the last two chapters in the book were a disappointment, falling well below the story value of the first six. Had the book ended after Chapter 6, I would have graded it at five stars. Feel free to skip those last two chapters or just dabble in them lightly.

After you finish the book, think about what you would have done in the situation where Mr. Smith sold securities from one branch of a bank to another part of the bank for a fat profit.

While the author may have white-washed some of his past, the following fact remains true. With great chutzpah and business acumen, he has amassed great wealth in countries where many simply dismiss without second thought. This is a fascinating story of how to become successful by combining the knowledge (of finance, international business and most important, the human nature) and the courage to act upon it.

Robert Smith makes the arcane world of emerging market debt interesting and understandable. He comes across, in a very readable fashion, as the Indiana Jones traversing the highways and back alleys of shaky countries buying and selling problematic debt.