The Money Culture

Michael Lewis, “The Money Culture,” Kindle Version, 2011, 304 pp. (Originally published 1991)

In this compilation of previously published articles, author Michael Lewis describes the 1980s financial scene—and later: He is convinced that much of society in the financial arena is based on what-you-can-get-away-with.  All of these previously published articles were written between 1986 and 1991.

I read this book because I was perusing a list of books by Michael Lewis, a favorite author of mine, and noticed this book I had not yet read.  As the book is so out of date, I don’t recommend it except to aficionados of Lewis, but I strongly recommend some of his other books, such as Blindside, Moneyball, Liars Poker, and the Big Short.

One overwhelming reason to read this book is it is the only book ever written that includes the true story of Eddie Braverman.  An amoral, mildly psychotic Lehman Brothers penny stock hustler.   Braverman famously stole the Lehman Brothers training program and sold it over and over again to penny stock boiler rooms all around the country.  Lewis covers dozens of Eddie's hijinks, including his haggling with an undertaker over his mother's casket because the undertaker refused to take his check. The undertaker relented, his mother was planted, and, sure enough, the check bounced.

Some of his more entertaining observations are: “Management-led LBOs, in which a company’s managers use borrowed money to buy the company from its shareholders, have become the easiest way for people not born with $100 million to ensure that their children don’t similarly suffer.”  

And a description of employees after a layoff:  ““Employees move on in a teeming, peristaltic mass”.   This description will join another favorite of mine: architectural incontinence (you can choose many substitutes for 'architectural',  for instance: how does "financial" work for you? 

My Notes:

Loc 113:  The articles collected in this book are set mainly in and around the new money culture.  They all relate, in one way or another, to the marvelous commercial madness of the 1980s.  Events are ordered geographically, with a section each on America, Europe, and Japan. 

Loc 120:  In 1985, the average income of the ten best-paid people on Wall Street rose from $29 million to $51 million.

Loc 2353:  The September 1, 1923, 7.9 magnitude Great Kanto Earthquake was a severe warning about what would happen to Tokyo if a similar event occurred now when all financial activity is centered in Tokyo, as it was by 1990.  Tokyo lies over the intersection of four of the earth’s twelve or so major plates and so runs the highest risk in the world of a California style quake.  Quakes have devastated Tokyo roughly every seventy years going back nearly four centuries: 1923, 1853, 1782, 1703, and 1633.  (An Earthquake in Tokyo is overdue.  Lewis gives a long explanation of the worldwide impact this will have on financial markets).

Loc 2466:  There are two relatively safe places in an earthquake in Tokyo: the Imperial Palace and government buildings.  These stand on a high rock about three miles from Tokyo Bay.  Rock is what you want to be standing on during a quake.

Loc 2963:  Japanese banks created the 100-year home mortgages, lending new meaning to the idea of mortgaging the future of one’s grandchildren.