I just finished reading Octopus by Guy Lawson, and it's one of those rare books that fit the "I Couldn't Put It Down" category, much like Den of Thieves, published in 1992. It is the tale of Sam Israel, whom you may remember in 2006 was on the lam from his failed hedge fund/Ponzi scheme. He faked his suicide, was captured, and is now hanging out for the next couple of decades (with none other than Bernie Madoff) in a state prison named, of all things, Valhalla.
Slope of Hope Blog Posts
Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
The Fourth Turning – Finally
After many instances of prodding from readers, I finally bought and read The Fourth Turning, and I'm sorry that I waited so long. It was a superb read, and it puts into words (340 pages of words, in fact) the general feeling I've had for so long that something big and bad is happening all around us.
I want to emphasize at the outset that this isn't some doom 'n' gloom book that came off the presses after all the calamities we've seen over the past decade. It is, in fact, a fifteen-year old book, and I imagine much of it was written around 1995 or so, during the feel-good Clinton years. When the book came out in 1997, the authors made clear that they were currently in the Third Turning, and that the Fourth Turning – the final quarter of a cycle that they postulate recurs throughout modern human history – was coming around 2005 or so.
Strauss and Howe write:
Over the past five centuries, Anglo-American society has entered a new era – a turning – every two decades or so….Together the four turnings of the saeculum comprise history's seasonal rhythm of growth, naturation, entropy, and destruction:
+ The First Turning is a High; an upbeat era of strengthening instutitions and weakening individualism;
+ The Second Turning is an Awakening, a passionate era of spirtual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime;
+ The Third Turning is an Unraveling, a downcast era of strrengtening individualism and weakening institutions;
+ The Fourth Turning is a Crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt
I just finished Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco. It is superb, and I've spent a fair amount of time typing in passages from the book below in order to capture some of its theme.
The "me" of twenty years ago wouldn't be caught dead reading a book like this. It is, after all, an unflinching assasination of our present capitalist system. As a younger person, I was wholeheartedly (and more than a little ignorantly) devoted to a dog-eat-dog, lassiez-faire capitalist system. And, in my adult life, I have lived that way, at least inasmuch as I created, built, and sold a successful business and have, before, during, and after that time, been a very active participant in the financial markets (both by way of trading as well as writing).
Experience and observation have moderated my views, however. At the outset I will say that I still regard capitalism as the most proper, natural, and constructive economic system, but I'm a much firmer believer in a modified version – – consistently-regulated with a distribution of wealth more akin to the 1970s than the present day – – than I ever imagined I would be.
This passage from the preface of the book captures the pages that follow nicely:
The ruthless hunt for profit creates a world where everything and everyone is expendable. Nothing is sacred. It has blighted inner cities, turned the majestic Appalachian Mountains into a blasted moonscape of poisoned water, soil, and air. It has forced workers into a downward spiral of falling wages and mounting debt until laborers in agricultural fields and sweatshops work in conditions that replicate slavery. It has impoverished our working class and ravaged the middle class. And it has enriched a tiny global elite that has no loyalty to the nation-state. These corporations, if we use the language of patriotism, are traitors.
Twilight of the Elites Book Review
I just finished reading Christopher Hayes' Twilight of the Elites, and I'd like to add this to the list of books I recommend Slopers read.
It's a marvelous examination of meritocracy in America – its value as well as its failings – and applies particular focus to the sharp growth in wealth disparity over the past thirty years.
I personally believe that books like this and the cures they advocate (namely, to soak the rich) aren't really going to materialize into action until widespread calamity strikes, but they do make for enriching and thought-provoking reading nonetheless.
There was one passage I liked in particular, which I shall happily type for you now. It sums up the theme of the book nicely:
Along with all of the other rising inequalities we've become so familiar with – in income, in wealth, in access to politicians – we confront now a fundamental inequality of accountability. We can have a just society whose guiding ethos is accountability and punishment, where both black kids dealing weed in Harlem and investment bankers peddling fradulent securities on Wall Street are forced to pay for their crimes, or we can have a just society whose guiding ethos is forgiveness and second chancves, one in which both Wall Street banks and foreclosed households are bailed out, in which both inside traders and street felons are allowed to rejoin polite society with the full privileges of citizenship intact. But we cannot have a just society that applies the principle of accountability to the powerless and the principle of forgiveness to the powerful. This is the America in which we currently reside.
Hedge Fund Market Wizards Book Review
I have been wanting to write a review of the new Market Wizards book for some time, but it took me a few weeks to slog through it in my spare time. I'll come right to the point: I think I got more out of this book than any of the prior Wizard books. All of them are good, starting with the first back in 1989 (side note: years ago, I worked for one of the Wizards in the original compilation………..err, don't ask).
I think the quality and sophistication of the information in the book is a cut above the others, probably because the individuals featured in this volume tend to be seasoned managers of very large funds. If you're a serious trader, I urge you to buy the book; I heavily highlighted my copy, and I've retyped some of the favorite segments below. The quotations are from different parts of the interview, so please read its paragraph as an independent snippet. The only organization I've provided is to precede each block of quotes with the name of the person who was being interviewed:
