Customer Reviews

The Money Culture

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This collection of previously published articles is at times very funny, insightful, and a good primer on several financial issues that dominated the 1980's, but it can also be repetitive (many of the articles repeat jokes, anecdotes, and some even seem to be slightly altered version of previous articles)and is quite dated since the articles detail financial events and characters of the mid to late 1980's. I learned a fair amount about the savings and loan scandals, leveraged buy outs, and the Japanese economic miracle and collapse, and also enjoyed some amusing tales of financial excess, but I had to read through a lot of less than interesting pages to find those treasures. I would not recommend someone buy this book, but if you can find it in the library, it is certainly worth flipping through it.

This is a collection of essays previously published in newspapers and magazines around the nation where some 10 years ago we could witness Lewis' early literary attempts. The book was consistently funny, insightful, and a good primer on several financial issues that dominated the 1980's. Most of these articles, for those interested in the authors' chronological history, came after he wrote his groundbreaking financial humor book entitled Liars Poker, which is regarded as a "must read" for anyone entering into the investment banking industry, particularly in bond trading where we he worked.

Mr. Lewis' writing style is great, which is why I read his book entitled Next, another good read if you are interested. Most of the topics in this book cover financial/business culture issues that date back during the late eighties, so there's also a bit of historical perspective to it.

The topics are a wide array and include stories about the domestic S&L scandal, some events that occurred in the French Bourse (their word for a stock market), the proliferation of the American Express Card during the 1980s, some offshore banking insights, Louis Rukeyser, Donald Trump, LBO stories and some comments on the Japanese capitalists. Like I said, he talks about a wide array of topics but remember that the book is a compilation of many articles.

I give it a 4 star rating. It was highly entertaining but nothing that caused my life to change or caused me to have a "light bulb" go off in my head.

Michael Lewis wrote one of the great popular books about Wall Street, Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street. It is a classic of what life was like on Wall Street during the time when mortgage backed securities, something we're hearing a lot about currently, was just getting off the ground. He also wrote the bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, which is a great baseball book. This collection of pieces written right before and after Liar's Poker is all right, but it is not his best work.

I have a high tolerance for bad writing if I am interested in the subject manner, but even I had trouble getting through some of the early pieces in here. Perhaps Lewis had to get all this poor sophomoric writing out of his system before he could write decent books. If the pieces collected in Money Culture are what it takes to get to Moneyball, then so be it.

Still, from a reader's standpoint, don't bother with this one, read Liar's Poker and Moneyball instead.

Articles published in different newspapers and magazines in the years 1980-1990 about major and lesser financial adventures.
The best ones for me, were 'Eddie the Chop House Boy' - about a stock salesman who continues to take everybody for a ride at different broker houses and 'Taken for a ride on the Customer's yacht' about Louis Rukeyzer as emperor without clothes.
Most articles have only historic value: the S & L scandal, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, the RJR Nabisco battle, the cornering of the bond market by Salomon brothers, the LBO mania (leveraged Rip-Off) and the end of the Japanese bull market (kamikaze capitalism).
All articles written in an ironical or sarcastic style.

This is a collection of essays previously published in newspapers and magazines around the nation where some 10 years ago we could witness Lewis' early literary attempts. Although Lewis is a witty, scrutinizing, insightful, and overall entertaining writer, I think this book is highly overpriced. Most of the topics in this book cover financial/business culture issues that date back during the late eighties, so there's also a bit of historical perspective to it, when LBOs were a la mode, Donald Trump was making headlines, and Japan was considered a threat to the US economy and welfare...crazy thought. Go for Liar's Poker if you want to read Michael Lewis, that script is a jewel.

I thoroughly enjoyed Liar's Poker. Having finished that, I picked up The Money Culture since I thought Michael Lewis did such a wonderful job with the previous book. Was I ever wrong. Buried deep within the holier-than-thou attitude was that slight trace of sarcasm that made Liar's Poker so great. Why did I ever pay for a collection of pure random thoughts? For a no-holds-barred look at the world of finance, I recommend Money Business and F.I.A.S.C.O.

Although now somewhat dated (most of this collection of essays dates from the late '80s/early '90s), this is a good book for those who enjoy getting the "inside scoop" on many internal Wall Street practices. The essay on the American Express card, though criticized elsewhere for being overblown, is in fact quite illuminating, as AmEx still markets their cards in the manner described by Lewis.

I am a big fan of Michael Lewis's work so naturally I thought money culture would be good as well. Well... it's not bad but this book really is a collection of Michael Lewis's early writing pieces. They are still humorous and critical of wall street culture but bit outdated. I would instead recommend reading other works by Lewis.

Lewis has done an excellent job in this book .The conclusions are as relevant today(2008) as they were when the book was written in 1991.Only the cast of characters has changed.Lewis demonstrates that " ...success was money,and money was made with debt,tax games,,paper shuffling,and arrogance.The people listened.And an insidious side effect of the chrome-plated Reagan boom may yet to be fully realized :the average American has been left with a whole new notion of how to succeed ".(1991,p.135).Lewis's prediction has been verified consistently over the last 17 years .Americans now seek to live based on generating profits without production.The average American has been transformed into a housing/stock market speculator who thought that one could live on the equity that he/she could effortlessly cash out of the supposedly ever rising value of their homes and stocks.Homes were transformed into a financial asset or piggy bank that would fund the good life forever .Lewis essentially breaks up the book into a series of chapters that concentrates on discussing the individuals who helped create the speculator view of life.Lewis covers Ivan Boesky,Michael Milken,Henry Kravis,Leona Helmsley,Lousis Rukeyser,T Boone Pickens,etc.Lewis could have titled the book as " The Wall Street Crowd ".

There is one substantial flaw in the book.Lewis apparently accepts the badly flawed claims of Burton Malkiel.Supposedly," Malkiel first demonstrated the statistical truth of what he called "the narrow form " of random walk ... "(1991,p152;see also p.154 where Lewis states that he sees no reason not to accept Malkiel's claim).Malkiel's hypothesis is that price changes over time in stock markets can be correctly modeled as being normally distributed.Unfortunately,there is not a single piece of evidence supporting this claim.Benoit Mandelbrot has demonstrated continuously,since the late 1950's,that the time series data fits the Cauchy or Power Law Distibutions.The data does not come close to being either normally distributed or " approximately " normally distributed.You will not see a single goodness of fit test referenced in any edition of Malkiel's book.The Normal distribution can't explain the boom-bust nature of financial capitalism.The Cauchy or Power Law distributions explain the facts perfectly.

This is really a collection of essays Lewis wrote for magazines and newspapers, many of them before he wrote "Liar's Poker". As such they are a mixed bag both in content and writing style. Perhaps the most entertaining are his accounts of the coming of American-style finance and ambition to Europe, and I also enjoyed the essays on Japan. However other essays are best simply because they are short.

If you are a Lewis fan and want a little light reading, fine...read this book. If you haven't read his other books, go read those first.