Wall Street's End Is Finally Here( very interesting)

http://www.businesssheet.com/2008/11/michael-lewis-wall-street-s-end-is-finally-here ^ | Michael Lewis

[ventanax5]

Michael Lewis, the brilliant author of "Liar's Poker" and "Moneyball" pens a lengthy story for Portfolio where he looks at:

[T]he 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.

It's an inherently flawed system, one that Lewis thought would crack years ago, but it appears as though its finally going to happen.

[BfloGuy]

Good post. Good read.

[Frantzie]

He is a very good writer. I did a paper in college 21 years ago on how derivatives (options/synthetic securities, etc) were very dangerous and how they might someday blow up the global financial system. I never thought it would actually happen.

[ventanax5]

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom

[nina0113]

This looks like something that will interest you.

[SamKeck]

I remember Michael Lewis and his book Liar's Poker from the late 80s/early 90s when I was heavily involved in the securities trading business. This latest effort is a somewhat long piece, but is one well worth reading for anyone who wants to know about the real inside workings of the Wall Street Gangs.

Thank you for posting it.

[OneWingedShark]

>He is a very good writer. I did a paper in college 21 years ago on how derivatives (options/synthetic securities, etc) were very dangerous and how they might someday blow up the global financial system. I never thought it would actually happen.

Now’s your chance! SUE Wall-Street for plagiarizing your work! ;)

[Former Proud Canadian]

mark

[khnyny]

Hmm, Liar’s Poker bump.

[Steve Van Doorn]

bump to read later

[berdie]

later

[indthkr]

bump

[PapaBear3625]

Thank you. This is an absolutely fascinating article.

[shove_it]

bump

[Lurker]

We are so f'd.

L

[Notary Sojac]

Thanks. Great article

"Like power and water, finance should function as a utility serving the real economy. Instead, finance has grown so large that it is sucking the energy out of the real economy, destroying it."

[dr_lew]

What’s with the deviled egg?

[ishmac]

ping for later

[LegendHasIt]

Very interesting. I didn’t really understand about 1/3 of it, but a good read nonetheless.

I did think that it was missing one important dimension though; The political one. Seems to me that that has to be a major factor in what happened, but he barely brushes against it.

[JerseyHighlander]

I first found out about this author on FR sometime in 2005,

he had an earlier article in 2007 that’s worth reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/magazine/26neworleans-t.html

August 26, 2007
In Nature’s Casino
By MICHAEL LEWIS