Liquidated an ethnography of wall street review. Michael’s review of Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street 2022-10-27
Liquidated an ethnography of wall street review
Rating:
6,9/10
183
reviews
Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street is a book written by Karen Ho, a sociologist who spent several years studying the culture and practices of investment banks on Wall Street. The book provides a detailed and nuanced look at the world of finance and the people who work within it, offering insights into the ways in which these institutions operate and the motivations and behaviors of their employees.
One of the key themes of the book is the role of culture in shaping the financial industry. Ho argues that the culture of Wall Street is one that is highly individualistic, competitive, and risk-taking, with a strong emphasis on performance and success. This culture is reflected in the way that employees are expected to work, with long hours and a high level of dedication being the norm. It is also reflected in the way that employees are compensated, with large bonuses being awarded to those who excel and those who fail being quickly eliminated.
Another theme of the book is the way in which Wall Street firms seek to maintain their competitive advantage. Ho shows how these firms use a variety of strategies to stay ahead of the competition, including recruiting top talent, developing cutting-edge technology, and aggressively pursuing new business opportunities. However, she also points out that this focus on competition can lead to a lack of collaboration and a failure to consider the broader social and ethical implications of financial decisions.
Overall, Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street is a fascinating and thought-provoking book that offers valuable insights into the inner workings of the financial industry. It is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the culture and practices of Wall Street and the broader world of finance.
Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street by Karen Ho
The history in this book was fascinating. Karen Ho opens the door to research questions that may take decades to answer, and at the same time, shows that they definitely need to be answered for the betterment of society. It is important to note that the people heralding downsizing and job market flexibility themselves experience it firsthand. The idea behind this is that it creates character and when an employee is let go it creates a better business. As for job insecurity, it leads investment bankers to morph instantly into successful job hunters and mobile survivors. In that beliefs in wall street are driven so deep that participants can not recognize anything else but what has been psychologically imprinted on them.
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(PDF) Book Review: “Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street” by Karen Ho
Her field methods included structured interviews, casual conversations, and participant observation at banking events such as industry conferences or recruitment forums. This includes people from different genders and races that work or interact with the major investment banks and companies that Karen shows us. And to this effort I say: why not? I don't know where lava lamps would fall on the liquidity scale, but 'the Roots and Narratives of Shareholder Value' definitely my favorite chapter. Overall the numerous transcribed interviews on different topics with bankers provides an illuminating window into a frenzied culture of greed, job insecurity, networking, and extreme elitism. So one wonders, right away, how did someone with values like these ever make it inside The Street? By announcing lay-offs, companies are claiming less labor cost which means more profit from their revenue. One day I may reread this slowly, but for now, a skim will have to do.
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Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street by Rodolfo Maggio
The book is not for the timid and takes a while to get going, but I am glad I read it. Their culture emphasizes smartness, hard work, risk taking, expediency, flexibility, and a global outlook. Office space in the buildings of Wall Street are positioned according to hierarchy, with the most elite of the bankers on the top floors and the lesser-paid bankers closer to ground level. It has shown us the humanity beneath the too easy stereotypes about foreign lands and cultures, and often revealed their surprisingly complex systems of practices and values. High cost of living and high living will come down. I conclude that the author succeeds in meeting the objectives of the study.
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Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street by Rodolfo Maggio
So what is the culture of Wall Street like? Finally, it shows how the process led to a commodification and erosion of those social relations on which it partially depended, thereby exposing problems for class reproduction and fracture lines among the urban poor. In Liquidated, Karen Ho punctures the aura of the abstract, all-powerful market to show how financial markets, and particularly booms and busts, are constructed. Many investment bankers use the low job security to their advantage by job hopping firms in order to secure the largest compensations. The Wall Street is continually eroding corporate America into a profit creating vessel at the cost of morals, ethics, equality, and consumers. In the book Karen is able to describe how the financial markets work and the construction of them. Its main strategy is by recruiting only from the most exclusive universities, e.
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Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street (a review)
I don't know whether that finding comes as a relief to readers or not. It was about these Wall Street banks creating and selling financial products like crazy. A country founded on the ideals of freedom and prosperity has become a land where a shrinking number of people are accumulating a greater amount of the wealth, while the majority of the nation suffers as a result of the actions of this small group. Throughout the book Ho explains the processes of Wall Street, and liquidated becomes a play on words that concerns not only the liquidity of the money and stocks, but specifically the people and Wall Street's view of corporate America. With that tangent aside, Liquidated, like most Ethnography's there is a heavy side to the methodology in which research was conducted for the study and research of this book. The revolution of deregulation has led to back door profits.
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Book Review of 'Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street'
. This is also not new if you follow the industry. It was a time when the stock market was regulated, and remnants of previous crises made shareholding seen as deceitful and unstable. This is the reason investment bankers get paid so much, they simply work for the ideology of making money today and now. Following Lacan, the credit crisis is explored in terms of the narcissism, paranoia and contempt for the law that in practice characterised the conduct of what economics celebrates as the rational individual. Review Essay Books reviewed: Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street. On the other hand that is something that is all a matter of opinion anyway.
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complianceportal.american.edu: Customer reviews: Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street
It has nothing to do with actually helping public companies as a way of assessing worth, and profits, but is all about profits for the few individuals running the game. I found the blind, shall I call it faith, of the indivisible hand and the ability to manipulated and play with the market and yet still wholeheartedly believe that your manipulations are not negatively hurting the market and that it is a normal function of it hard to believe; but then again I could be naively believing that the hordes of money that is made in these market manipulations are enough to make anybody forget whatever they like. Adam Smith initiated many ideas that grew to form the neoclassical approach to economics. It was fascinating to me to learn more about how actual offices run in Wall Street, and that those recruited for these jobs are based more on pedigree and schooling than the actual degree. Reaching the point where the bonus is a multiple of the salary. Being responsible for both liabilities and profits, this business owner became motivated to perform.
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Analysis Of Liquidated: An Ethnography Of Wall Street By...
It seems that most of the recruiting happens more heavily at Harvard and Princeton but nonetheless they are all seen as the prime recruiting grounds for the best and smartest. If you suspected that investment bankers are rat racing morons, you are correct-- she identifies a lot of the reasons why the entire stock market game is pretty absurd as well, but in particular the way investment banks and bankers screw themselves and the rest of us. This also goes for those who are in the middle of the hierarchy and because of this there is a lot of competition. Corporations no longer view themselves as responsible for taking care of their employees, creating good products, or serving their original mission. In answering this question Ho will begin to answer another, how Investment bankers actively make markets? In her book Liquidated, Karen Ho develops an outline of Wall Street's internal culture and how it directly affects corporate America, shareholders of these corporations, and all consumers within the economy.
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