Useful reading for readers seeking a mostly accessible overview of the banking industry.
Two London-based economics professors argue that banks make much of their profit not by serving depositors and borrowers fairly but rather by cheating.
Nesvetailova (Financial Alchemy in Crisis: The Great Liquidity Illusion, 2010, etc.) and Palan (The Offshore World: Sovereign Markets, Virtual Places, and Nomad Millionaires, 2003, etc.) explain that they chose the title after extensive consideration about its explosive implications. As the authors clearly show, the institutions highlighted in the book—Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bear Stearns, Deutsche Bank, among others—act dishonestly with their clients, their competitors, and their national governments as a matter of everyday operations. Even if they observe the letter of the law, they rarely observe the spirit of the law. At times, note the authors, the cheating crosses into the realm of criminal conduct. Of course, greed underlies much of this behavior; operating honestly can lead to lower-than-desired earnings and limited bonuses. Government regulators become so focused on maintaining the financial stability of the banks—an admirable goal—that unsavory practices go unnoticed or at least mostly unpunished. The authors look backward for much of their evidence, relying heavily on the economic theories of American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen and on a congressional investigation from the 1930s led by Sen. Ferdinand Pecora. Nesvetailova and Palan state that the findings from the Pecora investigation closely resemble banking industry sabotage that is widespread in the current markets. As the authors consider reform, they insist that everybody involved must abandon the traditional binary dichotomy of “market vs. regulation.” The dilemma of excessive profitability should become the core of how to proceed with reform. They close with a series of “simple but important intellectual steps towards a more adequate regulatory framework.” The last step is “to stop thinking about finance as a business for managing ‘other people’s money.’ Finance is the business of creating and managing our wealth, and it needs to be understood and regulated as such.”
Useful reading for readers seeking a mostly accessible overview of the banking industry.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61039-968-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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