Michael Lewis has a long history rich in financial literary renown. If his name sounds familiar then the odds are that you recognize one of his novels like Liar’s Poker or The Big Short (or you read a previous review of mine about Boomerang). The Money Culture delves into the excess and overconfidence within Wall Street during the 1980s. It reads a tad differently than most novels because each section is a different story.
Michael Lewis brings a uniquely human and bitingly honest perspective into the private and elite financial world. Part of the novel explores how the financial leaders at Salomon Brothers found themselves prey to their own egos as told from the perspective of a young trainee (Michael Lewis was the trainee). Salomon Brothers was an investment bank centered in New York and founded in 1910. It handled a massive amount of wealth until its eventual demise due to financial mismanagement. Michael Lewis sheds light on the importance of humility in large financial decisions as he recounts multiple stories where the need for status eclipses the actual drive for wealth.
For what is money without the ability to show off an elevated status? Perhaps the need to show off wealth comes from the need to set us apart from one another. It’s an interesting position that plays into the various individual tales that Michael Lewis recounts. One story describes a devious calculating man who apparently manages to work at over 30 Wall Street firms and even defrauds several of them along the way. Another tale speaks to the allure of elitism when certain department stores pride themselves on only accepting an American Express card.
I found that these two stories best point out the absence of logical choices in important financial matters. Why pay to have a credit card that can only be accepted at certain places or hire a notoriously crafty man? Maybe these were choices made due to the culture and not by impartial logic.
Overall, I placed this book lower on my financial top reads list mainly because it’s a compilation of stories that feels too similar to Liar's Poker.
Top Point:
Basically, people like to feel important even when they’re not. When the general culture encourages arrogance it becomes easy to lose sight of logic and humility.
Lessons:
When people get arrogant and start to show off, they do not necessarily make the smartest decisions, rather the decisions that may make them look better than they actually are. When investing it is important to keep humble and think over every move you make.
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