A vivid demonstration of how corruption and greed have become the main organizing principles in the finance industry.
A sharp attack on global financiers who are destroying the livelihoods of the nonwealthy.
In an apt follow-up to his 2012 book, Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens, Germany-based reporter Shaxson uses a variety of economic theories to examine the many perils of wealth accumulation. The theories are often complex, but the author aids understanding by employing helpful analogies and metaphors. He skillfully bolsters the big-picture elements of the narrative with compelling examples of painful microeconomic consequences for the 99 percent of world citizens who struggle with financial issues. Shaxson’s indictees are mostly leaders of large banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, and government entities that enable predatory capitalism through wealth extraction. The author begins around 1900 with oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, who, at the height of his power, “controlled over 90 percent of the oil refined in the United States, extracting vast wealth from consumers and generating fountains of profit, which were funneled beyond the core business into railroads, banking, steel, copper, and more.” As antidotes to the greed of Rockefeller and other robber barons, Shaxson offers the examples of muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell and renegade economist Thorstein Veblen, whose The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) was “a vicious exposé of a world where productive workers toiled long hours and parasitic elites fed off the fruits of their labors.” Unfortunately, their work, revelatory as it was, did not bring about lasting economic justice. The author offers a host of instructive discussions of a variety of elements to bolster his argument, including corrupt financiers in London and New York City, geographically obscure tax havens, the bizarre realm of wealth managers in South Dakota, a ravaged newspaper in New Jersey, and a shattered farm economy in Iowa. “Financialization,” writes the author, “hasn’t just sucked money and power away from rural communities; it has extracted their dignity.”
A vivid demonstration of how corruption and greed have become the main organizing principles in the finance industry.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2847-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
IN THE NEWS
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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