Scribner It is an April day in the year 2000 and an era is about to end The booming times of market optimism-when the culture boiled with money and. corporations seemed more vital and influential than governments-are poised to crash. Eric Packer. a billionaire asset manager at age twenty-eight. emerges from his penthouse triplex and settles into his lavishly customized white stretch limousine. Today he is a man with two missions : to pursue a cataclysmic bet against the yen and to get a haircut across town Stalled in traffic by a presidential motorcade. a music idol's funeral and a violent political demonstration. Eric receives a string of visitors-experts on security. technology. currency.. finance and a few sexual partners-as the limo sputters toward an increasingly uncertain future.Cosmopolis. Don DeL..