Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted the Financial Markets (Paperback)

Having read FIASCO, which was valuable mostly for its unintended humour, I didn't expect much of Infectious Greed; I was rather looking forward to slating it, to be honest. It has the same air of maiden-aunt prurience as FIASCO but, almost despite himself, Partnoy's conclusions here aren't especially objectionable, and mostly undermine the tone of studied outrage he cultivates throughout the early part of the book.

The thesis of the book is that the financial markets have, of late, been corrupted by deceit and risk (hang on a minute: financial markets are *about* risk. Is it meaningful to say they can they be corrupted by it?). Yet at least half the book recounts events which took place ten or more years ago, in the primordial soup of the derivatives market. If a week is a long time in politics, a decade is an aeon on Wall Street: in 2004, the exploits of Bankers Trust and CS First Boston in 1993 aren't exactly current. The nascent derivatives market is now a mature trillion dollar industry. I dare say Professor Partnoy wouldn't recognise it.

Partnoy's explanations of the transactions are, however, lucid: so much so that they undo his conclusions. At one point he describes in two paragraphs the 'whipsaw' risk of an 'Inverse IO' instrument. It's a very clear explanation, which completely undermines his concluding observation that 'it was unclear whether any mutual-fund mangers [the investors] understood all of this'. Here's the thing: to put not too fine a point on it, a professional fund manager who doesn't understand what can be lucidly explained in eight sentences, yet still invests in it, should be shot. So should his employer. And neither deserves the respect (for which, read, money) of the public. It might seem a harsh lesson, but it wouldn't take too many collapses to shake the mums and dads in Ohio out of their complacent stupor and shift their funds to a manager who was prepared to employ qualified managers and supervise them properly. The market has a way of teaching people valuable lessons that market regulation and government bail-outs really don't.

The funny thing is, Partnoy does continually stumble over this axiom, but doesn't recognise it. He quotes a Peat Marwick partner who derides ignorant fund managers thus: 'if you don't understand, you might as well place it all on red at Atlantic City or Las Vegas, because at least there you get free drinks.' Though Partnoy doesn't think so, the analogy is a good one: the very nature of Las Vegas (and Wall Street) ' its immense and lavish megaliths ' is the most graphic illustration of the fact that, unless you really know your onions, you are NOT going to end up a winner. The house is; which is why it can afford to build a full size Tomb of Tutankhamen in the middle of the hotel and charge only fifteen bucks a night for a room. Like Casinos, Wall Street trading desks have a motive ulterior to realising some poor schmuck's American dream; the object is to make ' not lose ' money, and this is exactly what they do and a statistically constant basis.

Partnoy repeatedly calls for regulation of the derivatives market without ever making a case for how this might be done or how it would prevent the losses he documents in the book: criminal statutes don't stop people committing murder, after all. All the regulation in the world won't stop fraudsters (if they're committing fraud, then by definition the regulations are already there, and they're breaking them). On the other hand, exploring the idiosyncrasies of rules *without* breaking them is the prerogative of every citizen, not just Wall Street banks. After all, regulatory arbitrage is only possible because of prescribed regulatory rules tend not to precisely reflect economic reality. If rules have irrational boundaries, then it is economically rational to exploit them.

Eventually, Partnoy acknowledges this. He cannot ultimately muster much venom for the perpetrators of the Enron debacle, and by the epilogue, where he sets out his recommendations (full marks to him for putting his money where is mouth is, by the way: it's one thing to criticise; quite another to suggest a solution) his proposals don't include regulation of the wholesale derivatives market ('some derivatives markets might appropriately have been left unregulated' he concedes) but simply equivalent accounting treatment with comparable financial instruments, and most of his fire is reserved not for Wall Street traders or greedy executives, but the rating agencies which operate under the umbrella of a government-sponsored oligopoly (only Moody's, Fitch and S&P are recognised for regulatory purposes). And you'll never guess what his solution is for dealing with the rating agencies: Without a hint of irony, he suggests they be deregulated!

By the final sentence of the book, it seems the most elementary elements of market theory may have finally slipped between bat and pad: Partnoy asks his readers whether they have taken any prudent steps to properly evaluate their investments before putting up any money: 'If you answered 'no,' you have one more person to blame in addition to the accountants, bankers, lawyers, credit raters, corporate executives, directors and regulators who failed to spot the various financial schemes of recent years. You.'

Not, in the final analysis, quite the damning indictment it cracked up to be, then.

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However not everybody will agree with his conclusions as to how to fix the system.

The book is well written, it is relatively free of jargon, and the content justifies the length - unlike many other business books you never feel that the book has been stretched thin.

Highly recommended.

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