Rare Earth Mania: When China Squeezed the World's Tech Supply

• Dec 06, 2025
• From Tulips to Bitcoins

Rare Earth Mania: When China Squeezed the World's Tech Supply

Your phone has rare earths in it. Your laptop has them. If you drive a hybrid or electric car, it is full of them. Wind turbines need them. Flat screens need them. Pretty much every piece of modern technology needs a tiny bit of these 17 metals that most people have never heard of. Chapter 39 of Torsten Dennin’s “From Tulips to Bitcoins” (ISBN: 978-1-63299-227-7) tells the story of what happened when one country controlled almost all of the supply and decided to squeeze.

• Dec 01, 2025
• Lucifers Banker Uncensored

Chapter 8 Part 2: The Mexico Setup - The Fallout

Birkenfeld is still sitting across from DOJ prosecutors Downing and Kelly, dropping bombshell after bombshell. He tells them about a UBS client named Abbas who held $420 million in six numbered accounts. This guy made his fortune through illegal oil deals with Saddam Hussein’s regime. The single largest account holder on the American desk.

• Nov 29, 2025

Glencore: The Secret Commodity Empire Goes Public

For decades, the world’s largest commodity trading company operated in near-total secrecy. No public filings. No shareholders to answer to. No journalists poking around. Then on May 19, 2011, Glencore listed on the London Stock Exchange and raised $12 billion in one of the biggest IPOs in history. Chapter 38 of Torsten Dennin’s “From Tulips to Bitcoins” tells the story of how a fugitive’s private empire became a public company. And how the insiders who sold their shares at the top never saw that price again.

• Nov 29, 2025
• From Tulips to Bitcoins

Glencore: The Secret Commodity Empire Goes Public

For decades, the world’s largest commodity trading company operated in near-total secrecy. No public filings. No shareholders to answer to. No journalists poking around. Then on May 19, 2011, Glencore listed on the London Stock Exchange and raised $12 billion in one of the biggest IPOs in history. Chapter 38 of Torsten Dennin’s “From Tulips to Bitcoins” tells the story of how a fugitive’s private empire became a public company. And how the insiders who sold their shares at the top never saw that price again.

• Nov 24, 2025
• Lucifers Banker Uncensored

Chapter 8 Part 1: The Mexico Setup - A Dangerous Game

The Department of Justice did not want Bradley Birkenfeld. He showed up anyway.

The DOJ’s Nightmare

Kevin Downing, a senior prosecutor in the DOJ Tax Division, had a problem. Two lawyers were calling on behalf of an anonymous Swiss banker who claimed to have the goods on the biggest tax fraud case in US history. Names of rich Americans hiding money in Swiss accounts. Names of Swiss banking officials who ran the whole scheme. Names of American politicians who knew about it.

• Nov 22, 2025

Cotton: When White Gold Hit Civil War Prices

In March 2011, cotton hit $2.15 per pound. That was the highest price since cotton trading began on the New York Cotton Exchange in 1870. The last time cotton was anywhere near that expensive, the American Civil War was raging and the South’s plantations had stopped producing. It took 150 years for cotton to reach those levels again. Chapter 37 of Torsten Dennin’s “From Tulips to Bitcoins” explains how a combination of floods, export bans, hoarding, and panic buying made it happen.

• Nov 22, 2025
• From Tulips to Bitcoins

Cotton: When White Gold Hit Civil War Prices

In March 2011, cotton hit $2.15 per pound. That was the highest price since cotton trading began on the New York Cotton Exchange in 1870. The last time cotton was anywhere near that expensive, the American Civil War was raging and the South’s plantations had stopped producing. It took 150 years for cotton to reach those levels again. Chapter 37 of Torsten Dennin’s “From Tulips to Bitcoins” explains how a combination of floods, export bans, hoarding, and panic buying made it happen.

• Nov 17, 2025
• Lucifers Banker Uncensored

Chapter 7 Part 2: Tarantula - Trapped in the Web

Birkenfeld is ready to blow the whistle. But first he needs lawyers. And that turns out to be way harder than he expected.

• Nov 15, 2025

Deepwater Horizon: The $65 Billion Oil Disaster

Some chapters in this book are about money. Some are about greed. This one is about what happens when you mix both with a deadline and a drill hole four kilometers under the ocean. Chapter 36 of Torsten Dennin’s “From Tulips to Bitcoins” (ISBN: 978-1-63299-227-7) tells the story of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The biggest oil spill in American history. Eleven dead. 780 million liters of crude in the Gulf of Mexico. And a final bill of $65 billion.