"I had no idea how my open-handedness could be made to look, after the fact. At the time I bought the subprime portfolio I thought: This is sort of like my way of giving something back. I didn't expect a profile in Philanthropy Today or anything like that. I mean, I bought at a discount. But I thought people would admire the Wall Street big shot who found a way to help the little guy. Sort of like a money doctor helping a sick person. Then the little guy wheels around and gives me this financial enema. And I'm the one who gets crap in the papers!" --
Michael Lewis on the subprime meltdown
posted by GrammarMoses
on Sep 8, 2007 -
42 comments
It's Wall Street bonus season. And, as Henry Blodget writes, the folks who have
"the good fortune of working in a hot industry in a favorable market environment" are doing extremely well this year. Notably, Goldman Sachs is breaking records with a $16.5 billion bonus pool. That is roughly $622,000 per employee but
some employees do better than others: "[Goldman CEO] Lloyd Blankfein, for one, will probably earn a measly $50 million (loser), whereas Morgan Sze (big man on campus), head of GS's principal strategies group in Hong Kong will go home with a check around twice that." Anyway, whether you're a $120K secretary or a $100M trader, author Michael Lewis has
some some tongue-in-cheek advice for dealing with poorer relations.
posted by blue mustard
on Dec 20, 2006 -
46 comments
The Ballad of Big Mike. “Where are you going?” he asked. “To basketball practice,” Michael said. “Michael, you don’t have basketball practice,” Sean said. “I know,” the boy said. “But they got heat there.” Sean didn’t understand that one. “It’s nice and warm in that gym,” the boy said. As they drove off, Sean looked over and saw tears streaming down Leigh Anne’s face. And he thought, Uh-oh, my wife’s about to take over. ... “One night it wasn’t going so well, and I got frustrated,” Mitchell says, “and he said to me, ‘Miss Sue, you have to remember I’ve only been going to school for two years.”’
posted by caddis
on Sep 24, 2006 -
40 comments
Three good pieces from the Sunday Times:
New York as viewed through foreign tourist guidebooks (big surprise, the French books are the ones that spend the most time pointing out American inferiority).
Jerry Nachman on journalists' overwhelmingly one-sided ideology and their rapidly-decreasing ability to hide it. And
Michael Lewis on how TiVo and Replay are going to destroy television as we know it, eek! (And
don't miss the videos showing how they blew up the TVs and Kellogg's boxes to get the photographs that accompany the article.)
I don't think the Nachman link will live beyond 11 pm Eastern on Sunday; I couldn't find a longer-lasting link to it. I guess opinion pieces aren't important to the Times.
posted by aaron
on Aug 12, 2000 -
11 comments
