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Product Description
From Black Monday to the Asian financial crisis, from the internet bubble to mortgage meltdown, our lives are ruled by crazy cycles of euphoria and hysteria that manage to grip the world but are all-too-soon forgotten.
In this unique collection of articles Michael Lewis - ex-trader and bestselling chronicler of greed and frenzy in the markets - casts a sceptical eye back over the most panicked-about panics of recent decades. He tells a story of boom and bust, deranged greed, outsized egos and over-inflated salaries, where the only thing that can ever be predicted is our constant inability to predict anything.
Using contemporary accounts from commentators such as Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs and Paul Krugman, plus many of his own best writings, Michael Lewis gives us a completely new insight into how markets really operate - and who really knows what they're talking about.
About the Author
Michael Lewis was born in New Orleans and educated at Princeton University and the London School of Economics. He has written several books including the New York Times bestseller, Liar's Poker, widely considered the book that defined Wall Street during the 1980s.
Lewis is contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, columnist for Bloomberg and Slate. He is married with children.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Unless you feel compelled to read every word that Michael Lewis writes, skip this book.
Panic! is a very peculiar concept for a book: Assemble mostly stories by journalists (and a few pundits) to describe the mood before, during, and after market crashes . . . while also providing a little understanding of "why" the market crashed. To me, that's a little like expecting sports journalists to predict who will be the best-performing athletes next season . . . and then explain why their predictions didn't pan out.
What do journalists know about financial markets? Based on reading these articles, precious little.
There are occasional gems that bear reading and serious consideration, but they are too few and too far between.
The articles are grouped around the market collapses that began with the October 1987 meltdown driven and aided by "portfolio insurance" program trades and move on to the currency runs on Thailand and Russia in 1997 and 1998, the Internet stock collapse in 2000, and the subprime mortgage fiasco recently spreading into the stock market crash of 2008-.
I predict that most readers will find the articles "describing" 1987 to be pretty confusing. There are better articles written about the period that are omitted from this collection. The currency runs are only slightly less confusing. The last two disasters are easier to follow if you aren't an economist or someone who watches CNBC six hours a day.
The standout of all the articles is the essay by Dave Barry, "How to Get Rich in Real Estate," from Dave Barry's Money Secrets. It's hilarious and right on. It's too bad the rest of the writing isn't as good.
Don't get me wrong. Michael Lewis knows how to write about finances in an entertaining way (even if he admits that he doesn't understand the newfangled financial instruments all that well), but he contributed only seven of the substantive articles in the collection. Two of them you will have read before (from Liar's Poker and The New, New Thing). One of them seems offbase to me ("In Defense of the Boom" which seems to say that having a wildly overpriced stock market in Internet stocks was a good thing).
I would have graded the book lower, but I was pleased to see that Mr. Lewis understands that the typical austerity advice that the IMF and the World Bank peddle to underdeveloped countries when there is a run on their currency is all wet. If we followed that advice in the current crisis, our short-term interest rate would be 22 percent and about 15 million more Americans would already be out of jobs.
At a time when one of the greatest financial messes in the history of the world is being unveiled daily in front of you, I would suggest you skip this book and watch the far more fascinating drama that's going on now. Clip the articles that you like, and you too will be able to produce a book like this one at some point.
Panic! is a very peculiar concept for a book: Assemble mostly stories by journalists (and a few pundits) to describe the mood before, during, and after market crashes . . . while also providing a little understanding of "why" the market crashed. To me, that's a little like expecting sports journalists to predict who will be the best-performing athletes next season . . . and then explain why their predictions didn't pan out.
What do journalists know about financial markets? Based on reading these articles, precious little.
There are occasional gems that bear reading and serious consideration, but they are too few and too far between.
The articles are grouped around the market collapses that began with the October 1987 meltdown driven and aided by "portfolio insurance" program trades and move on to the currency runs on Thailand and Russia in 1997 and 1998, the Internet stock collapse in 2000, and the subprime mortgage fiasco recently spreading into the stock market crash of 2008-.
I predict that most readers will find the articles "describing" 1987 to be pretty confusing. There are better articles written about the period that are omitted from this collection. The currency runs are only slightly less confusing. The last two disasters are easier to follow if you aren't an economist or someone who watches CNBC six hours a day.
The standout of all the articles is the essay by Dave Barry, "How to Get Rich in Real Estate," from Dave Barry's Money Secrets. It's hilarious and right on. It's too bad the rest of the writing isn't as good.
Don't get me wrong. Michael Lewis knows how to write about finances in an entertaining way (even if he admits that he doesn't understand the newfangled financial instruments all that well), but he contributed only seven of the substantive articles in the collection. Two of them you will have read before (from Liar's Poker and The New, New Thing). One of them seems offbase to me ("In Defense of the Boom" which seems to say that having a wildly overpriced stock market in Internet stocks was a good thing).
I would have graded the book lower, but I was pleased to see that Mr. Lewis understands that the typical austerity advice that the IMF and the World Bank peddle to underdeveloped countries when there is a run on their currency is all wet. If we followed that advice in the current crisis, our short-term interest rate would be 22 percent and about 15 million more Americans would already be out of jobs.
At a time when one of the greatest financial messes in the history of the world is being unveiled daily in front of you, I would suggest you skip this book and watch the far more fascinating drama that's going on now. Clip the articles that you like, and you too will be able to produce a book like this one at some point.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker, an account of Wall Street in the 1980s, has edited this fascinating collection. The articles are by Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Paul Krugman, Robert Shiller, Lester Thurow, the Economist, the New York Times and Lewis himself, among others. They look at the US stock market crash of 1987, the 1997 Southeast Asia crisis, the 1998 collapse in Russia, the dotcom bubble bust of 2000 and the crash of 2007.
Throughout, City of London and Wall Street traders were `making a fortune from the misery of others', as Lewis noted. The IMF made things worse by always forcing countries to cut spending and raise taxes. In 1997-98, it told Brazil and Russia to defend their currencies and raise interest rates (which benefited Wall Street, if not Brazil and Russia). Stiglitz concluded, "capital market liberalization ... is dangerous. It was not an accident that the only two major developing countries to be spared a crisis were India and China. Both had resisted capital market liberalization. Yet today, both are under pressure to liberalize."
In 1998 short-term money panic, ironically, destroyed the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. But the US government vetoed proposals to curb speculation, improve debt restructuring and restrict bank secrecy.
Stiglitz wrote in July 2007, "the fact that so many countries hold large reserves means that the likelihood of the problem spreading into a global financial crisis is greatly reduced." Wrong, Joe - capitalism isn't that rational.
The City, like Wall Street, is a casino. US credit agencies rated bonds using a formula called - appropriately - the Monte Carlo simulation. The City's only purpose is to make money for its members. Its speculators make their profits by taking wealth from savers and investors and gambling with it.
The City serves no any wider public, social or economic purpose. Its claims to place resources where they maximise growth are bogus.
Throughout, City of London and Wall Street traders were `making a fortune from the misery of others', as Lewis noted. The IMF made things worse by always forcing countries to cut spending and raise taxes. In 1997-98, it told Brazil and Russia to defend their currencies and raise interest rates (which benefited Wall Street, if not Brazil and Russia). Stiglitz concluded, "capital market liberalization ... is dangerous. It was not an accident that the only two major developing countries to be spared a crisis were India and China. Both had resisted capital market liberalization. Yet today, both are under pressure to liberalize."
In 1998 short-term money panic, ironically, destroyed the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. But the US government vetoed proposals to curb speculation, improve debt restructuring and restrict bank secrecy.
Stiglitz wrote in July 2007, "the fact that so many countries hold large reserves means that the likelihood of the problem spreading into a global financial crisis is greatly reduced." Wrong, Joe - capitalism isn't that rational.
The City, like Wall Street, is a casino. US credit agencies rated bonds using a formula called - appropriately - the Monte Carlo simulation. The City's only purpose is to make money for its members. Its speculators make their profits by taking wealth from savers and investors and gambling with it.
The City serves no any wider public, social or economic purpose. Its claims to place resources where they maximise growth are bogus.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
...page 264 'how to get rich in real estate' by Dave Barry is very very funny!
the rest of this book is just hundreds of old articles about old stock market crashes
some of these are taken from Liar's Poker and The Money Culture by Lewis.
This is a pretty cynical money making compendium of old articles by financial journalists.
Apart from Dave Barry's short and hilarious piece it's a total waste of time and money!
JP :(
the rest of this book is just hundreds of old articles about old stock market crashes
some of these are taken from Liar's Poker and The Money Culture by Lewis.
This is a pretty cynical money making compendium of old articles by financial journalists.
Apart from Dave Barry's short and hilarious piece it's a total waste of time and money!
JP :(
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Interesting
Not a book to sit down and read in one go, but some very interesting articles on various financial crises that have hit the markets over the last quarter century, from the crash of... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Phil O'Sofa
How it happened
Taken with Michael Lewis's previous book, Liar's Poker, which showed how young (mainly) men get into the banking machine, this book gives a clear understanding of how the system... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mike1930
Tricky but great (a review for A level/GCSE students)
Panic! (The History of Modern Financial Insanity) is like no book I have read. This is not surprising considering it is written by ex-bond sales man Michael Lewis, a man who used... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Jonathan D. Martin
Interesting articles but basically a cash in
There are plenty of decent articles in this volume but it is pretty lightweight.
It is interesting just how inaccurate some of them have proved to be. Read more
It is interesting just how inaccurate some of them have proved to be. Read more
Published 18 months ago by The Emperor
History through the eyes of those who were there
This book collects together essays and other writings from the time of 4 major financial panics (crises) over the last 25 years. Read more
Published 23 months ago by G. Young
a reader
In Dutch universities (and possibly elswhere), they would call this "a reader", a collection of texts usefull to the uninitiated. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Hugh van der Mandele
Curate's Egg
The first thing to note is that Micheal Lewis edits this collection and doesn't write it - which is a shame as he writes better than most other financial pundits. Read more
Published on 3 Jun 2009 by A. I. Mackenzie
lesson learned
Michael Lewis book is about the mad situation in the stock market. It is a collection of different articles over the last decade. Read more
Published on 27 April 2009 by Bernd Kotz
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