The End by Michael Lewis To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. The essential function of Wall Street is to allocate capital--to decide who should get it and who should not. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn't the first clue. (...) When I sat down to write my account of the experience in 1989--Liar's Poker, it was called--it was in the spirit of a young man who thought he was getting out while the getting was good. I was merely scribbling down a message on my way out and stuffing it into a bottle for those who would pass through these parts in the far distant future. Unless some insider got all of this down on paper, I figured, no future human would believe that it happened. I thought I was writing a period piece about the 1980s in America. Not for a moment did I suspect that the financial 1980s would last two full decades longer or that the difference in degree between Wall Street and ordinary life would swell into a difference in kind. I expected readers of the future to be outraged that back in 1986, the C.E.O. of Salomon Brothers, John Gutfreund, was paid $3.1 million; I expected them to gape in horror when I reported that one of our traders, Howie Rubin, had moved to Merrill Lynch, where he lost $250 million; I assumed they'd be shocked to learn that a Wall Street C.E.O. had only the vaguest idea of the risks his traders were running. What I didn't expect was that any future reader would look on my experience and say, "How quaint."
To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. The essential function of Wall Street is to allocate capital--to decide who should get it and who should not. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn't the first clue.
(...)
When I sat down to write my account of the experience in 1989--Liar's Poker, it was called--it was in the spirit of a young man who thought he was getting out while the getting was good. I was merely scribbling down a message on my way out and stuffing it into a bottle for those who would pass through these parts in the far distant future.
Unless some insider got all of this down on paper, I figured, no future human would believe that it happened.
I thought I was writing a period piece about the 1980s in America. Not for a moment did I suspect that the financial 1980s would last two full decades longer or that the difference in degree between Wall Street and ordinary life would swell into a difference in kind. I expected readers of the future to be outraged that back in 1986, the C.E.O. of Salomon Brothers, John Gutfreund, was paid $3.1 million; I expected them to gape in horror when I reported that one of our traders, Howie Rubin, had moved to Merrill Lynch, where he lost $250 million; I assumed they'd be shocked to learn that a Wall Street C.E.O. had only the vaguest idea of the risks his traders were running. What I didn't expect was that any future reader would look on my experience and say, "How quaint."
All his books (and columns) are worth reading. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I would like to second Jermome's comments about the writings of Michael Lewis: They are fantastic. Money is a sign of Poverty - Culture Saying
"Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And I'd always get the same reaction. It was a smirk." He called Standard & Poor's and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S&P couldn't say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number. "They were just assuming home prices would keep going up," Eisman says.
Jaw drops. Head explodes, then bangs on table. Sigh escapes. Gah excapes. Jaw drops more. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Sarkozy Forces the French to Join the 1980s: Michael Lewis
To the extent that the French enjoy a natural advantage, it is in their inefficiency: They are the world's most efficient producers of structured indolence. They are the kept women of the global economy; their status depends, in part, on their practical uselessness.
Of course, it's possible to change a society and to drag it into the global economic monoculture. Mrs. Thatcher showed how: Break up collectives and make people feel a little bit more alone in the world. Cut a few holes in the social safety net. Raise the status of money-making, and lower the status of every other activity. Stop giving knighthoods to artists and start giving them to department-store moguls. Stop listening to intellectuals and start listening to entrepreneurs and financiers. Don't mind that artists and intellectuals hate you -- or even that, for a time, the entire society seems to hate you. Stick to the plan long enough and the people who are good at making money acquire huge sums and, along with them, power. In time, they become the culture's dominant voice. And they love you for it. But the French are different. For one, they enjoy feeling alone in the world. Their problem isn't an incapacity for selfishness, or for individual initiative. Anyone who has ever watched a middle-aged Parisian male muscle aside a pregnant lady with a baby and steal her taxi can see that the French have what it takes to succeed in the modern world. They just don't want to. They want to take all those selfish impulses that might be directed into improving productivity and efficiency and wealth- accumulation and channel it into being ... French.
Don't mind that artists and intellectuals hate you -- or even that, for a time, the entire society seems to hate you. Stick to the plan long enough and the people who are good at making money acquire huge sums and, along with them, power. In time, they become the culture's dominant voice. And they love you for it.
But the French are different.
For one, they enjoy feeling alone in the world. Their problem isn't an incapacity for selfishness, or for individual initiative. Anyone who has ever watched a middle-aged Parisian male muscle aside a pregnant lady with a baby and steal her taxi can see that the French have what it takes to succeed in the modern world. They just don't want to.
They want to take all those selfish impulses that might be directed into improving productivity and efficiency and wealth- accumulation and channel it into being ... French.
Well, at least he's right about Thatcher.
This is the best explanation I've heard of Anglo disease. Listen to the Terri Gross 'Fresh Air' interview. You can't be me, I'm taken
