House of Cards: A review

"House of Cards" by William D. Cohan has a very captive non-linear format. Cohan starts with the ten day crisis that faced Bear Stearns during the financial crisis. I remember when I started reading the book and I was telling my friends, "This book is intense! It starts off with Bear Stearns saying one day 'We have billions and billions of dollars' to ten days later 'We're gone.'" You get sucked in quickly with that initial story, but after that initial story the book slows down considerably.

The second part of the book is the Golden Age of Bear Stearns, and it tells the story of the three biggest players in Bear: Cy Lewis, Ace Greenberg, and Jimmy Cayne. One gets a feel as to how Bear was run and what the culture was like inside of it. Furthermore I found it amusing how Bear was able to have such a successful organization for so many years with the three above personalities under the same roof.

The third part is where the cracks in the dam start to show for Bear beginning with its hedge funds and eventually leading up to the ten day crisis. Again it is slow here but it puts into context the first part of the book, and anyone who wants to know how Bear collapsed should read this. The final part is an afterwords of sorts with a quick explanation of the Lehman Brothers, another investment bank sometimes called "a larger Bear Stearns," collapse and what happened to most of the Bear executives.

If there is one reason to read this book it is to learn from history. One of my favorite quotes is, "If there is one thing we learn from history it is that we learn nothing from history." "House of Cards" is full of lessons that one can take away from history so as to not repeat the same mistakes (Although I would argue they are going to happen again regardless of how much we know). Lessons such as, know your investments (a Warren Buffet rule), watch out for hubris (Shakespeare is big on this one), and be careful when you are playing with other people's money (OPM).

On a final note I am coming away with Ace Greenberg definition from this book: Poor, Smart, and Desire to be rich or PSD. Only reason I'll remember this is because I consider myself one of them; hey maybe I will start an investment bank! Mortgages look good, right?

Links from the weekend and today

Finally had some spare time this weekend between playoff hockey games (Go Sabres!) to finish "House of Cards" by William D. Cohan. Opinion above.

• Tax Relief, Obama Style

• Denying Shakespeare

• The public choice economics of spending cuts (Tyler Cohen about Canada)

• Can the Elites Save the United States (Arnold Kling rebuttal of Tyler Cohen)

• Canada's Road to Balanced Budgets (David Henderson's two cents on Mr. Cohen and Kling)

• 5 reasons why the Tea Partiers are right on taxes

• The perils of the value-added tax (George F. Will)

• Drunk-Driving Deaths Are Way Down, But... (Another article that proves my point that life is not priceless)

• Americans Are More Skeptical of Washington Than Ever

• Congress vs. Honduran Democrats (It is just silly that we cannot get this one right)

• Back to a Better Normal: Unemployment and Growth in the Wake of the Great Recession (Christina Romer)

• Christina Romer vrs. the bloggers (Arnold Kling's response to Christina Romer)

• Is current unemployment all about aggregate demand? (Tyler Cohen's two cents on Ms. Romer and Mr. Kling.)
  

My Side Project: Self-Consolidating Concrete

Now most of my posts have something to do with either economics or politics, but I have mentioned many times that I am studying to be a civil engineer. As a matter of fact I am graduating in three weeks. However the road to graduation had one pitfall: I was short one professional elective. I did not catch my screw up until half-way through the semester, and I began trying to rush to find and add a course. Thankfully Spencer Thew allowed me to do some research on Self-Consolidating Concrete for him. Also as I have mentioned before I turned that project in last week, but I feel as though the project is incomplete.

I feel as if I have not given Self-Consolidating Concrete the justice it deserves. The project for Spence had a limited length so I could not just keep compiling information upon information for him. Blogs on the other hand can be as long or as short as I want them to be. So I am creating another blog much similar to this one only all about Self-Consolidating Concrete. I will try to regularly post links of what I am reading about SCC and post my project and update my project as needed. So please if you have time visit: Joe Bushey's SCC.

PS-I will try to write for those who are not Civies, but apologize if I assume you know civil stuff you do not.

Links from yesterday (again)

Computer problems are slowing me down incredibly these past couple of days. However here is what I was reading yesterday

• How to Save the Catholic Church

• Too Big Not to Get Right

• The Greens' Ground Zero

• The Case Against Gene Patents (Joseph Stiglitz and John Sulston quite the duo, and for a follow up listen to Michael Heller on EconTalk discuss the tragedy of the anti-commons)

• Don't Blame High Unemployment on the Unemployed (Letter to the Editor from Larry Summers)

• Summers on Demand (The WSJ response to Larry Summer's letter)

• The Donner Party's Wikipedia (They were in the news so I figure I should brush up on the story)

• A Guest Post by John Galt (on Greg Mankiw's Blog)

Finally I want to present this link to a video that shows a how big our budgets are and how little savings we are getting from the current administration. (I wish I could embed, but I cannot so the link should suffice)

GO SABRES!

Links from yesterday

I went to post these links yesterday and I started to play some Lady Gaga. I noticed my computer's sound was all sorts of messed up; so naively I tried to fix it. Four hours later and multiple curse words later it still was not fixed. So now I am rocking out to "Fear the Boom and Bust" on my Zune.

• Europe's VAT Lessons

• Why Republicans Are Winning the Tax Issue

• How to End America's Addiction to Oil

• George W. Bush's 2010 Tax Miracle

• We're Number 61!

• The Looming Entitlement Fiscal Burden-Becker

Links the past couple of days

I have been spending most of time working on my Self-Consolidating Concrete Independent Study so I have not been able to post what I am reading, so here is a sample from the past couple days:

• Greece's Debt Lessons (New York is headed down the same path)

• Did FDR End the Depression?

• The Jobs Picture Still Looks Bleak (I read this just for its rosy optimism)

• Fewer Students, More Teachers

• How Free Were American Women in the Gilded Age?

• Only a brave few acknowledge an entitlement crisis

• Incentives Not to Work

• Reaganism, New Jersey Style
  

• Women, Liberty, and the Gilded Age: A Reply to My Critics

• Postcard from the Gilded Age

• Why smoking should be regulated, but not by the government.

Finally I must acknowledge a video that I was introduced to by one of the bloggers I follow (I apologize, I cannot remember who). It is a Youtube video on the IRS by a student at William and Mary. Now I am not going to comment on her arguments about the tax system; I am going to save that for a later blog. However I will admit if she taught Economics or anything for that matter at my college I would gladly attend every class and ask for extra help on every homework regardless of whether I needed it or not. I wonder if anyone can figure out why:

Not for profits are crazy

Received an e-mail from my senior class president asking for donations from the graduating senior class. Thankfully it got caught by the university's spam blocker even though it was coming from a university address (ironic) because I consider it spam anyways. For craps and giggles I decided to have it delivered and read it, and here are some entertaining excerpts:

The Senior Class Gift is a final opportunity to leave your mark and impact the future of our great institution.......The 2010 Senior Class gift is a fire pit that will be located outside of the new student center. The fire pit and its surrounding area will provide the campus community with a place to relax, mingle with friends and keep warm during the frigid winter months.......we want at least 30% of our class to participate and help us reach our goal of $30,000.

$30,000 for a fire pit?! Hell I would do it for $29,000, and I am sure that is not the market price. Actually I could use more beer money right now just pay me minimum wage and I will go dig a fire pit for you! I am a young strapping lad so it probably would only take me a good day's work. That would be 8 hours at $7.50 an hour for a grand total of 60 bucks which is equal to about 2.5 thirty packs of my favorite hometown beer, Genny Light. Assuming I consume 10 beers per night and I only drink 3 times a week. That would last me 2.5 weeks not including my current stock of Genny and suitable replacements like cheap tequila and vodka.

I should have seen this crazy logic coming after the parking space e-mail. My incredibly rational university decided it needed more parking spots for its employees. That is cool, but how they went about it made me tilt my head say "What the hell?"

During the upcoming Spring Break, a parking change will take place in Cheel upper parking lot #9. To accommodate more staff moving from Downtown Old Snell Hall into Graham Hall, additional parking spaces will be required. The staff parking area adjacent to the roadway and Price Hall will be extended to take up the entire first row giving an additional 20 spaces. To make up for these lost spaces primarily used by students, for the remainder of the spring semester, we will remove the "No Parking 2am- 6am" signs on the north side of Cheel Lot along the woods to accommodate student parking. This will give an additional 25 spaces for that use.

So let me get this straight, the university permanently took away 20 parking spots from the students, and gave them 25 parking spots during the hours 2 AM to 6 AM? Now in perfect SNAFU fashion the parking spots in the 2 AM to 6 AM are no where close to any residential building. Actually the parking spots closest to the residential buildings are the 20 that are reserved for employees now. Wonderful! I had to forward this e-mail to my father just to show him the crazy logic and his response had an even better idea:

Why doesn't someone suggest that staff walk from Old Birnam Woods to High Dunsinane. That will give an additional 20 spaces plus the additional 25!

After four years of this I must agree with, Byran Caplan not for profits are crazy.