William T. Vollmann: By the Book - The New York Times

William T. Vollmann: By the Book - The New York Times

Kazuo Ishiguro: By the Book - NYTimes.com

Kazuo Ishiguro: By the Book - NYTimes.com

Geithner, Staying on Script - NYTimes.com

Geithner, who seems sincere, is just another one of the successful people on Wall Street who lack any self awareness.



Geithner, Staying on Script - NYTimes.com

Tim Geithner, unreliable narrator — Medium

Tim Geithner, unreliable narrator — Medium

Lunch with the FT: Tim Geithner - FT.com

Lunch with the FT: Tim Geithner - FT.com

Thomas Piketty doesn’t hate capitalism: He just wants to fix it - Vox

Wealth is hard to track.

- There already is a wealth tax on the middle tax. It is called the real estate tax.

- top lists glorify entrepreneurs and hide most wealth. Those lists do not track those with diversified wealth.



Thomas Piketty doesn’t hate capitalism: He just wants to fix it - Vox

‘Stress Test,’ by Timothy F. Geithner - NYTimes.com

Classic Lewis

""Before he can save any women and children, he has to rescue the drunks in first class who owned all the lifeboats."



‘Stress Test,’ by Timothy F. Geithner - NYTimes.com

Lawrence H. Summers for Democracy Journal: The Inequality Puzzle

Lawrence H. Summers for Democracy Journal: The Inequality Puzzle

Book Review: 'Stress Test' by Timothy F. Geithner - WSJ.com

Book Review: 'Stress Test' by Timothy F. Geithner - WSJ.com

Why Do You Want To Be A Hedge Fund Investor? | The Big Picture

Why Do You Want To Be A Hedge Fund Investor? | The Big Picture

'Capital in the Twenty-First Century' by Thomas Piketty, reviewed | New Republic

'Capital in the Twenty-First Century' by Thomas Piketty, reviewed | New Republic

‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, by Thomas Piketty - FT.com

‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, by Thomas Piketty - FT.com

the top of the world - bookforum.com / current issue

the top of the world - bookforum.com / current issue

The uncomfortable truth about Brad Stone's Amazon book - Fortune Tech

The uncomfortable truth about Brad Stone's Amazon book - Fortune Tech

Alan Greenspan's 'The Map and the Territory' Reviewed by Robert Solow | New Republic

Alan Greenspan's 'The Map and the Territory' Reviewed by Robert Solow | New Republic

Guns, Germs and Steel

Jared Diamond in Gun Germs and Steel writes to a more popular audience than Karl A. Wittfogel did in Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power but comes to the same conclusions. Environment makes societies. Jared says that the availability of crops and animals and the orientation of the continent (east west versus north south) led to development of some cultures faster than others. I didn't buy the environment idea when I read Wittfogel and I don't buy it in the infinitely more entertaining Diamond. There is more to the development of cultures than the accident of geography. People and peoples make choices and individuals do matter.

Eat the Rich

It often takes an outsider to distill the essence of something. P.J. O'Rourke on one page in Eat the Rich gives all the advice that the west ought to ever give on development. The secret to getting ahead is hard work, education, responsibility, rule of law, property rights and democratic government.

The way he gets there is a world tour of Wall Street (Good Capitalism), Albania (Bad Capitalism), Cuba (Bad Socialism), Sweden (Good Socialism), Russia (How not to reform an Economy), Tanzania (How to make Nothing from Everything), Hong Kong (How to make Everything from Nothing) and Shanghai (the worst of both Worlds). I am not sure if he would re write the chapter on Shanghai.

Oracle Bones

Sometimes there are books that I just do not get. This is one of them. It seems more of an unedited diary than a well thought out book. But because the diary happened to be in a foreign country the book became a possibility.
NYT review.

Adam's Fallacy

A couple of years ago there was an Atlantic article "The Market as God" which parodied the similarity between theological treatises and the comments about the movement of the bond market. And David Stockman once said that he wanted to come back as the bond market. Duncan Foley's book warns that economics is neither good nor bad. It just is. If there are value-laden decisions to be made, we must find other sources to make choices. Economics will not tell you.

Soldier

The book review is better that the biography of highly regarded Colin Powell. He gave up his reputation because he forgot that he was no longer a soldier.