Riveting, for those who can persevere through the slack prose.
With hours of expert testimony on Enron before Congress under his belt, Partnoy (Law/Univ. of San Diego) also draws on his own experience in selling the arcane contracts known as derivatives to put an investor’s dilemma into perspective.
The author’s previous work, F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street (not reviewed), warned of the dangers inherent in financial instruments created for the sole purpose of allowing companies to evade financial regulations. Here, he goes back some 17 years, naming the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Bankers Trust, its CEO and chairman Charles Sanford, and his wunderkind, Andy Krieger, as key figures in the origination of the kinds of investment banking deals and “swaps” that eventually snared firms like Enron, Worldcom, and others. As the banks soon found out, the temptation for companies to place bets on interest or exchange-rate fluctuations in order to fund business ventures as cheaply as possible was irresistible from the start. Partnoy makes it appallingly clear that as these hedges against debt have evolved and become increasingly convoluted, the number of takers who will never understand them, much less profit from them, has continued to swell. For example: one structured note’s terms included a variable based on the number of wins by the NBA’s Utah Jazz. Partnoy makes a telling point in stressing that Enron’s deals and those of other now-scandal-plagued companies were basically not illegal and were all enumerated in annual reports in some occluded form or other. Perhaps the worst news for investors is that in Partnoy’s view the government’s response, last summer’s Sarbanes-Oxley Act, was “weak and limited” because Congress “had no blueprint” and was merely responding to public pressure to place blame. The markets today are “like Swiss Cheese,” he claims, “with the holes—the unregulated places—getting bigger every year as [rules beaters] eat away at them from within.”
Riveting, for those who can persevere through the slack prose.Pub Date: April 14, 2003
ISBN: 0-8050-7267-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Career and business advice for the hashtag generation. For all its self-absorption, this book doesn’t offer much reflection...
A Dumpster diver–turned-CEO details her rise to success and her business philosophy.
In this memoir/business book, Amoruso, CEO of the Internet clothing store Nasty Gal, offers advice to young women entrepreneurs who seek an alternative path to fame and fortune. Beginning with a lengthy discussion of her suburban childhood and rebellious teen years, the author describes her experiences living hand to mouth, hitchhiking, shoplifting and dropping out of school. Her life turned around when, bored at work one night, she decided to sell a few pieces of vintage clothing on eBay. Fast-forward seven years, and Amoruso was running a $100 million company with 350 employees. While her success is admirable, most of her advice is based on her own limited experiences and includes such hackneyed lines as, “When you accept yourself, it’s surprising how much other people will accept you, too.” At more than 200 pages, the book is overlong, and much of what the author discusses could be summarized in a few tweets. In fact, much of it probably has been: One of the most interesting sections in the book is her description of how she uses social media. Amoruso has a spiritual side, as well, and she describes her belief in “chaos magic” and “sigils,” a kind of wishful-thinking exercise involving abstract words. The book also includes sidebars featuring guest “girlbosses” (bloggers, Internet entrepreneurs) who share equally clichéd suggestions for business success. Some of the guidance Amoruso offers for interviews (don’t dress like you’re going to a nightclub), getting fired (don’t call anyone names) and finding your fashion style (be careful which trends you follow) will be helpful to her readers, including the sage advice, “You’re not special.”
Career and business advice for the hashtag generation. For all its self-absorption, this book doesn’t offer much reflection or insight.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16927-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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