Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Normally I write these “reviews” the day of or after having finished the book. It’s been a few weeks since I finished Flash Boys. I don’t know what that says. This book made me angry, and it scared me, and I am very glad i read it, and I’m feeling extremely frustrated by its revelations.
Nutshell: people with fast computers can snipe stock trades before legitimate buyers get a chance to make their purchases. This drives up stock prices, drains the economy of billions of dollars a year, and contributes zero value.
And look, I’m not some kind of economic philosopher or crusader or whatever you want to call people who get mad at folks for making money. I’m all for people making money. I don’t much like that the rich have installed system that keep them rich at the cost of keeping poor people poor, but that’s not what this is about. This about people using loopholes and tricks to siphon money off of regular commerce. This isn’t capitalism; it’s cancer.
That’s where my head is at, having read this book. For review purposes: Once again, Michael Lewis tells a story that’s more evocative for the people in it, and offering up enough repeated exposition to get the message across and educate the reader.
I said as much about The Big Short: he repeats himself a lot in these books about Wall Street vampires, but he has to. A story that can be be boiled down to a long Wikipedia article or a series of newspaper columns has more flesh and more impact with a wordsmith like Lewis. I described his writing to a friend recently thus: he writes about sports like money journalist and he writes about money like a sports writer.
But let’s be clear. These things that these Wall Street people are pulling off– this isn’t Monday Night Football. This wanton, destructive robbery.