The book Liar’s Poker begins in 1986, the first year of the firm Salomon Brothers decent, with Michael Lewis and the rest of the employees confused by the characteristics of their boss John Gutfreund. Gutfreund was known throughout the firm to bring a sudden chill to your bones or at Lewis put it “as same as the nervous twitch of a small furry animal at the silent approach of a grizzly bear” (Lewis 120). What had the employees confused was that Gutfruend usually hovered over everyone quietly with his cigar droppings all over; today however, he made a straight line toward the desk of John Meriwether. Meriwether was known as Salomon’s finest bond traders. Gutfruend went to him and whispered “One hand, one million dollars, no tears” (Lewis 127) what Gutfruend had whispered meant that he had challenged Meriwether to a betting game called Liar’s Poker. The game Liar’s Poker consist of a group of people, form a circle. Each player holds a dollar bill to their chest. Each player attempts to fool the others about the serial number printed on the face of their own bill. One trader starts by making his own bid, and attempts to guess a certain amount of a number consisting in every player’s dollar. An example from the book started the bid with three sixes. Counting every player plus himself each serial numbers contain at least three sixes.
In 1984 Michael was living in London pursuing the finish of his master’s degree in economics at the London School of Economics. He received an invitation to dine with the Queen Mother. He was seated between two managing directors from Salomon Brothers wives. Trying to stay calm they began quizzing him, and later on offered him a chance to work for Salomon Brothers.
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... I did. Lewis really broke down every scenario quite well and made the book amusing and informing. Learning about how the bond market worked was interesting as well. The facts he wrote about why the bond market exploded, one being The Fed announced that the money supply is going to be fixed and interest rates will float. And two America was borrowing money faster than ever. This book made me think a lot on how things worked in that field and also made me research certain aspects to grasp the content. Although there was a lot of financial information, I enjoyed his style of discussing the environment and personalities throughout his experience. His writing style is unique which builds up my curiosity to read another book from him.
Lewis, Michael. Liar’s Poker: Rising through the Wreckage on Wall Street. New York: Norton, 1989. Kindle File.
The novel Liars Poker by Michael Lewis is a very interesting firsthand account of an inside look into the investment banking world, in particular bond trading at the firm Solomon Brothers in the 1980s. Lewis took an interesting and roundabout way to end up on Wall Street, studying art history at Yale and bombing his interview with Lehman Brothers. But he eventually found himself at Solomon Brothers through a lucky encounter with two managing directors wives. Through his book, Michael Lewis conveys the inner workings of investment banks in the 1980s to the average person using his own experience at Solomon Brothers. The book goes into Lewis’s own rise in the firm, as well as the rise and fall of the entire Solomon Brothers Mortgage department.
In Karen Hos’ Liquidated, she aims to study the relationships between corporate America and the world’s greatest financial center. . . Wall Street. The. She puts all her three years of research in her ethnography and thus on the very first page of chapter one, we can already understand Hos’ determination to understand what Wall Street is all about. The first main theme explained is the relations on Wall Street that are based on a culture of domination of staff members, their irresponsibility dealing with corporate America, and constant changes that occur during this process.
However, as details of his success were revealed, his moral character becomes increasingly questionable. Firstly, he did not disclose the methods by which he was making enormous profits, and the stakeholders, with their singular desire for profit, did not care about the legitimacy of its conception nor did not ask questions. As Machiavelli writes, “It is unnecessary for a prince to have all good qualities… but it is very necessary for a prince to appear to have them”11 (Ch. 18). Fletcher looked like an upstanding citizen. He donated to charity and was extremely smart and charming. Machiavelli also writes, “the means will always be considered honest… because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it”11 (Ch. 18). This points to Fletcher’s ability to appeal to unwitting investors, paralleling the “common folk” Machiavelli rudely called “the vulgar”. Through charm and exciting results, he convinced many to invest in his fund. As long as he maintained the image and promise of high returns, it did not matter how the ends were achieved.
When Peekay wants Morrie to start betting on the Geldenhuis match, Morrie is doubtful because he is “making book in the dark” (339). Peekay considers Morrie the embodiment of Hoppie’s advice when Morrie says: “No offense Peekay, but next time first the facts then the trust.” (340). Peekay appreciates that Morrie is able to place logic over friendship. When Peekay wins, however, Morrie is able to trust in his skill. Morrie and Peekay also use their head in setting up a gigantic scam. When Geldenhuis and Morrie bet on the outcome of the match, Morrie asks Geldenhuis: “Twenty percent of the winnings or fifty quid now, it’s your choice” (403). Morrie, knowing that Geldenhuis had never seen a 50-quid bill, used his knowledge of psychology to earn a profit, as twenty percent of the winnings would have amounted to far more than 50 pounds. Morrie deliberately uses the word “now”, knowing that Geldenhuis would seek immediate gratification. After Morrie gives Geldenhuis the 50 pounds, Geldenhuis foolishly challenges Peekay to a match, and Morrie bets on Peekay: “I bet you fifty quid Peekay smacks your arse!” (405). By using provocative language such as “smacks your arse”, Morrie is deliberately goading Geldenhuis into accepting the bet. Geldenhuis, a proud man, is in a dilemma: he either bets and, in all probability, loses fifty quid; or he can deny the bet and admit to himself that
Weissman, Robert. A BAD BET Casino Economics and the Politics of Gambling [Online] Available http://prince.essential.org/monitor/hyper/mm1196.04. html,
“Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story Of Wall-Street” is a story with many different elements of literature. The author explores the use of choice, chilling isolation, and diverse linguistic phrases to create an intense atmosphere of theme and morality.
When you love someone, you 've gotta trust them. There 's no other way. You 've got to give them the key to everything that 's yours. Otherwise, what 's the point? And for a while, I believed, that 's the kind of love I had” (Casino). Casino centers on Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein, a gambler of legendary skill who is sent by the mob in the early 1970s to Las Vegas to manage its newly acquired Tangiers Hotel and Casino. Ace is an outsider among outsiders: a dispassionate, calculating, almost pitifully tender civilian among thugs. He’s a Jewish bookie sent by the mob to manage a Vegas casino and embezzle cash for the crime bosses back home. Even when he dons a flamboyant suit and runs patrol around the felt tables of his amoral arena, he looks unsatisfied.
The adrenaline-rushing feeling of gambling offers people the idea that opportunity lies within their hands. Unfortunately, there are far too many consequences to gambling to even begin to count. To win you must play, and to win big you must play big. As more gamblers can recall their losses rather than their winnings, gamblers are often dealt with poor hands and must play the risky game to stay alive. Even though gambling has so many faults, some still fall under its corruptions because of gambling’s deceiving fallacies.
The holocaust is known for the great number of deaths; including the six million Jews. Ida fink is a writer that captures this time period in her works. In “The Key Game” she appeals to pathos because of imagery used, connections to your own family, and dialog used by both the father and mother. Through her fiction stories, she tells tales that relate to what could have been and probably what was. Ida Fink is known for telling her stories in a journalist like tone with very little color. In her stories, she does not like to tell you how to feel she instead leaves that up to the reader. Fink does place some hints of emotion just by writing the story alone. The interpretation of her works is left up to the reader. As you read through her stories some will find more emotion, some will find more logic, and some may see more ethics. At the moment, we will be looking more on the side of emotions within this story.
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sexuality he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in restitution to any swindled stock buyers of his brokerage firm (A&E Networks Television). Though his lavish spending and berserk party lifestyle was consumed by excessive greed, he displayed both positive and negative aspects of business communications.
"Gambling Under Attack." CQ Researcher. Congressional Quarterly Inc. 6 Sept. 2012, Volume , No. 33 Pages 769- 792
Mooney, Richard. "Banker of America." The Boston Globe 4 Apr. 1999: L1 "Powerful house of Morgan Changes with the Times." The San Diego Union-Tribune 24 Feb. 1986: 18 Sinclair, Andrew. Corsair: The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan. Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1981.
The stock market is an enigma to the average individual, as they cannot fathom or predict what the stock market will do. Due to this lack of knowledge, investors typically rely on a knowledgeable individual who inspires the confidence that they can turn their investments into a profit. This trust allowed Jordan Belfort to convince individuals to buy inferior stocks with the belief that they were going to make a fortune, all while he became wealthy instead. Jordan Belfort, the self-titled “Wolf of Wall Street”, at the helm of Stratton Oakmont was investigated and subsequently indicted with twenty-two counts of securities fraud, stock manipulation, money laundering and obstruction of justice. He went to prison at the age of 36 for defrauding an estimated 100 million dollars from investors through his company (Belfort, 2009). Analyzing his history of offences, how individual and environmental factors influenced his decision-making, and why he desisted from crime following his prison sentence can be explained through rational choice theory.
Machiavelli, N., 1988, The Prince, Q. Skinner and R. Price (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
I want you to, for a moment, think about playing a game of Monopoly, except in this game, that combination of skill, talent and luck that help earn you success in games, as in life, has been rendered irrelevant, because this games been rigged, and you've got the upper hand. You've got more money, more opportunities to move around the board, and more access to resources. And as you think about that experience, I want you to ask yourself, how might that experience of being a privileged player in a rigged game change the way that you think about yourself And regard that other player?