Summer Reading

The market is quiet (too quiet, you can almost hear an Clint Eastwood type character mutter as he chomps on a cigar) ahead of UK-palooza and the Indian election results later this week.  Maybe it's the weather (at last, legitimate warmth in the Northeast) or the frail state of the market's psyche, but it feels as if summer markets are already here.

Given that summer calls to mind lassitude and lazy afternoons reading on a beach chair, Macro Man thought that he would publish a summer reading list early this year.  However, given that he has started using the TMM Twitter feed, he has fallen prey to the crippling decline in attention span that so often accompanies the heavy use of social media.

Thus, as a public service, he is providing a summer reading list of contemporary and historical classic economic and market texts, complete with Twitter-esque precis in 140 characters or less.  Readers can of course feel welcome to add their own favourite tomes with summary in the comments section.



The Wealth of Nations (Smith): Division of labour spurs productivity; excess capital can derive revenues; free trade and fair taxes are best  

Das Kapital (Marx): Capital reaps too many rewards from production; labour doesn't reap enough

The General Theory (Keynes): Aggregate demand is the key to full employment; sometimes the government needs to step in and provide it

The Road to Serfdom (Hayek): Central planning and socialism destroy freedom and oppress the individual

Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (Schumpeter): Capitalism sows the seeds of its own demise by allowing intellectuals to impose socialism

The Affluent Society: The US should focus less on production and more on public investment

A Monetary History of the United States (Friedman/Schwartz): By impacting money supply, monetary policy can influence the economic cycle

Atlas Shrugged (Rand): Objectivists run better railroads than collectivists; John Galt doesn't want to work for The Man any more   
                                                                                                                                    
Manias, Panics, and Crashes (Kindleberger): Financial bubbles are broadly similar: innovation is priced, then over-priced, then the collapse

Irrational Exuberance (Shiller): It’s a bubble

Black Swan (Taleb):  Buy tail risk- it’s always underpriced

This Time is Different (Rogoff/Reinhart):  &^%ing Excel
 
Flash Boys (Lewis):  HFT guys front run you but Brad Katsuyama doesn't want to let them

Capital in the 21st Century (Piketty): Capital reaps too many rewards from production; labour doesn't reap enough
 

Apologies in advance to any reader who feels that the precis of their favourite work was somehow misrepresented here.   The fault lies entirely with the summarizer...or with trying to convey any sort of substance in 140 characters or less.

Previous
Next Post »

13 comments

Click here for comments
amplitudeinthehouse
admin
May 12, 2014 at 2:58 PM ×

ORIGINS OF MATERIALISM : ( George Novak) The barter of bonds for thin air.

Reply
avatar
Nico
admin
May 12, 2014 at 4:05 PM ×

my favourite work ever has to be Janjuah update today:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-12/janjuah-pdate-sp-500-first-1950-then-1700

Reply
avatar
Anonymous
admin
May 12, 2014 at 4:15 PM ×

Only 1700 ? This bear is becoming tame.

Reply
avatar
Leftback
admin
May 12, 2014 at 5:37 PM ×

Local rules dictate that Bob be referred to herein as "Jamjar". This is mandatory before the debates begin on his Nuclear Winter, or Big Freeze predictions.

Betting against CBs to fancy themselves a bit in the macro arena and being willing to have a poke from long distance hasn't worked out very well. Like defending free kicks into the 6 yard box taken by Stevie G. One day the Fed is going to get caught on the break, but repeated cycles of QE are just a series of professional fouls. The bond market hasn't even reached for a yellow card yet.

Reply
avatar
abee crombie
admin
May 12, 2014 at 7:09 PM ×

I'm surprised there were no investing books

The Money Game: Stop trying to be rational and realize Wall St is just a big sandbox

The Intelligent Investor: Mr Market is stupid so only buy stocks when they are on sale

One Up on Wall Street: Look for good (local) businesses

Reply
avatar
androidjedi
admin
May 12, 2014 at 9:57 PM ×

other classics;
- Den of Thieves (James B Stewart)
- Barbarians at the Gate (Bryan Burrough and John Helyar)

Reply
avatar
Macro Man
admin
May 12, 2014 at 10:01 PM ×

Den of Thieves: Insider trading is bad and eventually gets punished

Barbarians at the Gate: F. Ross Johnson REALLY like to do deals

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator: Price tells all, unless it doesn't. Bucket shops are bad.

Reply
avatar
Polemic
admin
May 12, 2014 at 10:47 PM ×

How about a list of books not to read? I d start with Piketty's

- A History of Time for Guardianistas. "must read" Coffee table book for the pseudointellectual.

As all its readers just use it to substantiate their prior beliefs then why bother reading it? On top of that lets be honest, it's mindlessly dull.

Reply
avatar
Polemic
admin
May 12, 2014 at 10:59 PM ×

I do suggest Gary Jobson's "Championship Sailing" - a definitive guide for skippers tacticians and crew. Nothing to do with finance of course but a lot more practical than some of the economic naval gazing I've been forced to read in the past

Reply
avatar
Anonymous
admin
May 13, 2014 at 12:55 AM ×

Ayn Rand:
“Do you wish to know when that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.”
–Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged, p. 385 (1957)

Reply
avatar
Gnome of Zurich
admin
May 13, 2014 at 8:16 AM ×

You are into serious trouble if you read this kind of stuff on your summer vacation... but my take on it:

The Wealth of Nations (Smith) Still true and therefore still mostly ignored.

Das Kapital (Marx) Good fiction written in bad prose wrongly assumed to be about economics.

The General Theory (Keynes)The bible of all interventionists. Like the bible full of contradictions and inconsistencies, but nevermind.

A Monetary History of the United States (Friedman/Schwartz) Friedman is for free markets everywhere, but not in money.

Manias, Panics, and Crashes (Kindleberger) People get carried away with their emotions, regulators presumably not.

Irrational Exuberance (Shiller) dito.

Capital in the 21st Century (Piketty) The latest fool confusing securities' value with productive capital, basicly just measuring p/e, cap rates and overall securitization.

Human Action (Mises) People act and react, there are no equilibria. The one who can predicts consumers' demand the best, wins the most, but there is no formula.

Reply
avatar
Anonymous
admin
May 13, 2014 at 9:50 PM ×

Flash Boys is a 300 page advertisement for IEX, Brad Katsuyama's exchange, and though well written, is an extremely poorly researched book and sensationalizes an entire ecosystem that I am quite an expert in. The errors and blatant omissions really make me wonder how much of his previous best sellers is true.

Dark Pools by Scott Patterson is a much better treatment on the subject of electronic and high frequency trading. Though Scott Patterson's narrative is also heavily biased in my opinion, at least he showed some restraint and objectivity. Patterson's research was much more thorough and accurate.

Reply
avatar
Anonymous
admin
May 14, 2014 at 12:57 AM ×

Money Mania by Bob Swarup. Read it.

Reply
avatar