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Восхождение денег
Jan. 6th, 2009 11:35 pmДочитал популярную книжку о финансовой истории мира, "The ascend of money". Пожалуй, самая интересная из прочитанных в последнее время: если бы увидел ее школьником, возможно, пошел бы учиться финансам. Возвращаясь к теме, обсуждаемой в “Outliers”: не только талант и работа важны для успешной карьеры, но и просто удача. Какой бы ни был талант у человека в финансовой области, реализовать его в условиях Советского Союза не было возможности.
Finished reading "The ascend of money". This very well may be the most interesting book I have read in year 2008. It is quite probable that had I encountered this or similar book thirty years ago, I would have considered getting into studying finances rather going into the computer science. And it returns me to the topic discussed in “Outliers”: contrary to meritocratic beliefs, not only the talent and work matter, but the pure chance plays an equally important role.
The book goes through the history of development of the world’s finances, starting with cash money, then going to banking, credit market, bonds, shares and stock market, real estate securities, and ending with CDAs, hedge funds, mathematical modeling and a striking comparison between the biological evolution vs. financial evolution: while the former is a result of random selection, the latter is guided, following the argument of intelligent design.
Few points that I consider curious. First, I used to believe that the today’s globalization period is unique in our history; turns out, globalization had started in 1880s and continued until the WWI; with the consequent market crash and Depression free capital flow has began to be believed unsafe. Second, after reading the book I got an impression that the today’s stock market is essentially a mechanism of transferring the money from amateur investors to insiders and professionals. Third, market bubbles and bursts are intimately connected with the human nature, with wild swings from being overoptimistic to pessimistic.
На очереди - "Третий шимпанзе" Джареда Даймонда и "История русской революции" Пайпса.
Finished reading "The ascend of money". This very well may be the most interesting book I have read in year 2008. It is quite probable that had I encountered this or similar book thirty years ago, I would have considered getting into studying finances rather going into the computer science. And it returns me to the topic discussed in “Outliers”: contrary to meritocratic beliefs, not only the talent and work matter, but the pure chance plays an equally important role.
The book goes through the history of development of the world’s finances, starting with cash money, then going to banking, credit market, bonds, shares and stock market, real estate securities, and ending with CDAs, hedge funds, mathematical modeling and a striking comparison between the biological evolution vs. financial evolution: while the former is a result of random selection, the latter is guided, following the argument of intelligent design.
Few points that I consider curious. First, I used to believe that the today’s globalization period is unique in our history; turns out, globalization had started in 1880s and continued until the WWI; with the consequent market crash and Depression free capital flow has began to be believed unsafe. Second, after reading the book I got an impression that the today’s stock market is essentially a mechanism of transferring the money from amateur investors to insiders and professionals. Third, market bubbles and bursts are intimately connected with the human nature, with wild swings from being overoptimistic to pessimistic.
На очереди - "Третий шимпанзе" Джареда Даймонда и "История русской революции" Пайпса.
