Scan barcode
A review by ferris_mx
Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits by Kevin Roose
3.0
For a while I was going to soften this review, because I have a friend-of-a-friend relationship with the author, and I'm also open to the possibility that I have some sour feelings about a spurned friend request and the fact that the author didn't seek my input despite 25 years on the street.
Then I got pissed about the episode where the author infiltrates the PRIVATE banking equivalent of the White House Correspondents' Dinner and reports private jocular interaction with attribution. And you know, I feel that many of the jokes were in poor taste, and if I were at that dinner, I would be uncomfortable. But the reporting of that dinner was unethical and so I'm going to say what I want to say about the book.
First, the reporting on the analysts is trite. The author maintains an arms length relationship with his subjects, and as a result, never gets inside the analyst experience in an interesting way. Statements are passed off as fact (such as, before 2008 firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley rarely had layoffs - FALSE). Why say such things? Yet the book is rife with them.
The author starts with the preconception that Wall Street is bad. And, maybe it is. But if that's the point, research it and write a book making that case. Then I can at least argue with the analysis. In this book, the anecdotes of the analysts are spun to conform to that preconception without any critical support. Thus, the reportage loses authenticity and the book's thesis remains unsupported. The author's attitude towards the young financiers is patronizing.
Don't believe me? It's an easy beach read. Let me know what you think.
Then I got pissed about the episode where the author infiltrates the PRIVATE banking equivalent of the White House Correspondents' Dinner and reports private jocular interaction with attribution. And you know, I feel that many of the jokes were in poor taste, and if I were at that dinner, I would be uncomfortable. But the reporting of that dinner was unethical and so I'm going to say what I want to say about the book.
First, the reporting on the analysts is trite. The author maintains an arms length relationship with his subjects, and as a result, never gets inside the analyst experience in an interesting way. Statements are passed off as fact (such as, before 2008 firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley rarely had layoffs - FALSE). Why say such things? Yet the book is rife with them.
The author starts with the preconception that Wall Street is bad. And, maybe it is. But if that's the point, research it and write a book making that case. Then I can at least argue with the analysis. In this book, the anecdotes of the analysts are spun to conform to that preconception without any critical support. Thus, the reportage loses authenticity and the book's thesis remains unsupported. The author's attitude towards the young financiers is patronizing.
Don't believe me? It's an easy beach read. Let me know what you think.