You might know the name Lutz Kleveman if you've read his articles or heard him speak about his book, The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia. Last year, Lutz went off to South America to chronicle the drug trade and the rising tide of urban warfare between drug lords and paramilitary police. Very much the kind of thing we were hearing about in the news out of Brazil a couple weeks ago. I read Kleveman's article, "Street Fighting Boys", last night and you can read his account of time spent among the drug gangs by clicking the link.
Welcome, readers . T o get the first look at brand new posts (like the following piece) and to receive our exclusive email list updates, please subscribe to the Finance Trends Newsletter . The Boston Red Sox won their fourth World Series title of t he 21st century this we ek. Having won their first Se ries in 86 years back in 200 4, the last decade-plus has marked a very strong return to form for one of baseball's oldest big league clubs. So how did they do it? Quick background: in late 2002, team own er and hedge fund manager, John W. Henry (with his partners ) bought the Boston Red Sox and its historic Fenway Park for a reported sum of $ 695 million. Henry and Co. quickly set out to find their ideal General Manager (GM) to help turn around their newly acquired, ailing ship. This brings us to one of my fav orite scenes from the 2011 film , Moneyball , in which John W. Henry (played by Ar liss Howard) attempts to woo Oakland A's GM Billy Beane (Brad Pi