The Capitalist - Peter Steiner
This is mostly an ongoing rant about capitalism. Too bad some of this conspiracy theories inspired rant might actually be true as it's entirely embarassing.
The author could have made a much better job to learn the ropes of investment banking as he is not speaking about it per se. And is doing a horrible job of it. The details are painfully underresearched as it often happens with this sort of books. The description of GS is plain ludicrous, basically the GS do business in a rather different way. For instance, GS don't do asset management. It is GSAM that do it. This info could have been googled, if need be.
PS Not sure why I'm reading it. The total misunderstanding of finance vastly expressed throughout this novel is really gritting.
PSS Ok, it's a DNF. I don't think me and this series will hit it off with each other. My BSometer simply wouldn't let me.
Q:
“By the same token,” said St. John, “the unfortunate must not be allowed to drag the economy down. Those unwilling to pull their weight, well, we can’t encourage sloth and dependency, can we? Forty-seven percent of the people of the world”—he may have made up the number, which caused him to repeat it for emphasis—“forty-seven percent, nearly half, expect their government to provide them with health care, clothing, food, you name it.…”
(c)
Q:
Even lending money for interest was, ipso facto, a larcenous enterprise. Laws and regulations had been put in place to keep banks and other lenders from charging more than was seemly. But what was seemly, and who decided what was seemly? Anyway, even with strict laws in place, banks found ways through and around the laws, thanks to teams of skilled money managers and lawyers, who behaved, in fact, not unlike Vikram Rob and Abdur Pandit and agents and factory owners and bankers and lawyers across the suffering world. They managed to charge preposterous interest rates on consumer debt and make it seem a benevolent and virtuous act.
(c) Incredibly simplistic...