Michael Lewis’ thoroughly readable book, Flash Boys, caused something of a stir on Wall Street yesterday. Check out the cheers from the stock market floor as they react to the debate. I’ve embedded the whole thing because, well, it’s worth it to see a major Wall Street asshole called out – at length. Michael’s summary of the book – at around 20 minutes – is really helpful. You need to read the book – get it here – to see how, for some time, insiders used incredibly fast trading in “dark pools” to get a lead on everyone else, and thereby stole an advantage on the average investor, i.e. you and me.
I wasn’t naive to expect that the sharks who tanked our entire economy by their greed, incompetence and contempt for the rest of us would somehow reform themselves. But it’s a huge relief to know that Michael is still out there asking the right questions; and a blessing to see the mild-mannered Canadian, Brad Katsuyama, speak honest truth to devious money – and actually do something about it.
I’ll be moderating Michael’s DC book-signing event, via Politics and Prose, at GW’s Lisner Auditorium at 7 pm this Friday. Tickets are available here.
Today, I tried to live up to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ recent soaring blogging about race and America; we marked the first month since 2003 in which not a single service-member died in combat (change you can believe in); we aired more defenses of Cosmos‘ history; and noted the harsh treatment of the poor in Paul Ryan’s brutal budget for the rich. And we re-launched our Book Club, with Bart Ehrman’s How Jesus Became God.
The most popular post of the day was our recent post on the Coates-Chait debate; runner-up was our April Fool’s joke; followed by my latest post on race and America.
See you in the morning.
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