Books look at various aspects of the economic tsunami.
BY RICHARD PACHTER
A boom is coming. In fact, it has already begun. The rising tide of books dealing with ongoing economic catastrophe is building and will undoubtedly crest within the next couple of months. The blame games and finger pointing ought to be a hoot — or at least a cottage industry. This time, we'll look at four attempts to identify and elucidate the root causes of the mess, and in a few weeks, we'll examine several ''where do we go from here'' efforts.
Panic. Michael Lewis. W.W. Norton & Co. 352 pages.
Lewis' compilation of articles and excerpts recounting the 20 years of mischief and malfeasance that preceded the current tsunami of crap (a/k/a ''The Great Recession'') is more fun than it ought to be. Not that it's a comedic yuk-fest, but the writing is quite sharp and a pleasure to read. The content includes contributions from Lewis himself (a master reporter and deft stylist), Dave Barry, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and James Surowiecki, as well as contemporaneous reports from major newspapers. The text covers crises ranging from the Asian Meltdown, Russian Default and other more mundane — and unnamed — disasters right up to the current mess.
Lewis notes that contributors waived their fees, and all royalties from this book will go to a fund for rebuilding New Orleans, so at least some good will come from all the pain.
House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street. William D. Cohan. Doubleday. 480 pages.
Cohan's previous book, on Lazard Fréres, was excellent, and this one is another exhaustive look inside a major financial institution, Bear Stearns. As with the earlier volume, the author does a superb job of revealing corporate culture and personalities. But this is far from a gossipy beach read. Cohan is a superb and incisive journalist, and his interviews and other research bring clarity and comprehensibility to this complicated and sordid tale. 
Catastrophe: The Story of Bernard L. Madoff, The Man Who Swindled the World. Deborah and Gerald Strober. Phoenix Books. 256 pages.
While this is hardly a rush job or an instant effort, it was clearly composed rather quickly and will almost definitely be superseded by later books on Madoff, possibly by the Strobers themselves. Their narrative is straightforward and cleanly written; requisite pop psychoanalysis and telepathic reconstructions of events are kept to a minimum. Reportage and analysis herein emphasizes the human aspects of the Madoff scandal. The sense of shock and disgust is palpable as they proffer numerous quotes from victims, including Holocaust survivors, as well as depleted donors to charitable and educational institutions. Legal citations and other documents are quoted, too.
Enron and Other Corporate Fiascos: The Corporate Scandal Reader. Edited by Nancy B. Rapoport, Jeffrey D. Van Nie and Bala G. Dharan. Foundation Press. 1254 pages.
If they ever decide to throw the book at Madoff or any of the other financial criminals, this 1,200-page-plus tome is the one I'd heave. This hefty volume — larger than many municipalities' phone directories — is a compendium of experts' writings on the Enron debacle and other malfeasance. Writers are mostly law professors, but there's one ringer — Malcolm Gladwell — whose New Yorker article on Enron is also available online, in case you want to skip this weighty compilation.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Big Boom in Post-Mortem Studies of the Financial Meltdown
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
Though well researched and authoritative, this history of the Lazard Frères' investment firm may not be of interest to those not involved with the firm.
BY RICHARD PACHTER
The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co., The World's Most Elite and Enigmatic Investment Bank. William D. Cohan. Doubleday. 752 pages.
Corporate histories and exposés are dicey things. Even when the subject is fairly familiar, there still needs to be a compelling narrative with good guys, bad guys and enough revelations to keep things interesting. And if you are an insider, ex-employee, client or are otherwise well acquainted with the company being profiled, you are bound to be more interested and aware than other readers.
For example, I once shared a book on the Coca-Cola Co. with a manager who formerly worked for the firm. He later reported that he'd enjoyed it but that its picture of the organization was quite incomplete.
No kidding!
A book providing a complete and detailed portrait of any company would have to be so huge that it would be unwieldy and so ponderous that it would be virtually unreadable, making it unlikely to be widely read and to attain popular success.
The Last Tycoons comes close, which is not necessarily a good thing for all concerned.
Author William Cohan worked at the Wall Street firm of Lazard Frères for six years and was later a managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and an investigative journalist. In writing this book, which has been promoted as the first full look at the firm, a major financial powerhouse, he brings his ample professional accomplishments in both fields to bear.
Lazard is seen by many as an Old School behind-the-scenes force in the market, in politics and in other dominant institutions. The firm was closely held by family members throughout much of its history, so few details about its colorful owners and managers — other than mostly packaged and pre-spun stories — have appeared in the press. Profiles of former head Felix Rohatyn and current CEO Bruce Wasserstein are ubiquitous, but Cohan offers a different view of each.
Detailing the firm's founding and establishment in America and parallel development in Europe, Cohan proves an amiable and intelligent tour guide. In addition to his ample knowledge of business, finance and human nature, he also places events in their historical context, a clear byproduct of his research. With a rather large cast of characters, Cohan strives mightily to create vivid and detailed portraits of the principals by invoking as many personal traits and anecdotes as possible without overburdening the reader. Still, throughout the 750-plus pages of text and notes, characters come and go and amid the wheeling, dealing and other machinations. As inevitable weight of the tome's details drag it down, a page-turner this is not, despite Cohan's consistently elegant prose.
Still, there are some especially memorable passages. How the American director of the company managed to secure safe passage for its European — and Jewish — manager only to be ousted after the aristocratic refugee settled in the states is especially poignant and revealing. And inside stories of a number of scandals in which the company was directly or peripherally involved will surely score with those of us who suspected that contemporaneous media reports revealed only parts of the tales.
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