OT
From Kirkus Reviews
On Margin's Edge: The Ylang Ylang Breeze Story
By Trish, Poet, and Jill
In this cautionary tale of greed, madness and Bull Market excess, the authors, cyber friends of Ylang Ylang Breeze, give an insiders perspective to the horrific events which captured headlines world-wide in the spring of 2000. A convincing argument is made that future financial historians will peg the decline of the greatest bull market in American history to the Ylang Ylang Breeaze tragedy.
Her now legendary status eclipses the reality of the person, a Southern California housewife named Joelle, known on Silicon Investor message boards by her cyberhandle Ylang Ylang Breeze. Driven by the euphoria of newly-minted Quillionaires on the Qualcomm thread, and by the domestic pressures of her husband's demands for a luxury car, and the refusal by her daughter-in-law housekeeper, pregnant with triplets, to continue doing windows or even help out with dinner, Joelle succumbs to the lure of a life lived on margin. In no time the stress of her broker's margin calls starts to take its toll. Tequila and pills don't help her cope and her rising anxiety leads her to sword swallowing. Sensing that she is spinning out of control she pretends to her friends that the sword swallowing is only something she read about.
Then, at a banquet in San Diego for Qualcomm message board shareholders her slide into madness begins. She has agreed to be part of the evening's entertainment and sing My Darling Clementine with her threadmate Voltaire. But as they are being introduced a costumed Joelle bursts onto the stage and immediately slips an eighteen-inch blade down her throat to the shock of all in attendance.
Paramedics were called to attend to Aunt Nancy, wife of G&K thread founder Uncle Frank. As Aunt Nancy was put in the ambulance, an AP reporter overheard Uncle Frank's angry statement, "We never should have allowed girls on the thread in the first place". Subsequent denunciations of Uncle Frank by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Hillary Clinton and Cher are fully documented in the chapter notes.
Readers are sure to be enthralled by the authors' perceptive and compassionate retelling of all that occurred after that fateful banquet--the Federal Reserve's decision to raise margin requirements, and Joelle's final descent into the dark side of the American Dream.
Quotes from book jacket recommendations:
--How will I ever forget that day? I was doing my pre-opening market report from the floor of the exchange standing next to the AOL trading desk, and suddenly, there she was. It all happened so fast. Swords flying everywhere. The screams, the carnage, the floor of the New York Stock Exchange a river of blood. AOL dropped 90 points on heavy volume. It was horrible.
--Maria Bartiromo
--She could swallow how many inches? Lord have mercy!
--Bill Clinton
--After reading Joelle's heart rending story of margin rage and its consequences to society I am more convinced than ever of the need for sword-control legislation.
--President Al Gore
--I was only trying to curb inflation--Alan Greenspan |
