Tag: michael lewis

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Latest Read: The Premonition

The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis. A tough, certainly insightful look at men and women who understood and directly confronted the pandemic at the beginning. At the same time, they ran into bureaucratic roadblocks. Their efforts to save the country is the story of this book.

the premonition a pandemic story

For instance, as early as January 2020, Dr. Charity Dean, the assistant director of the California Department of Public Health in 2020. She certainly understood the coming pandemic and began warning California State officials. Surprisingly, Charity Dean was even prohibited from publishing the word “pandemic” in her research reports. Furthermore, as stunning as it may seem, her boss and the state locker her out of planning meetings.

Dr. Carter Mecher, senior medical advisor to the Veterans Administration initially helped craft the Bush Administration’s pandemic response plan. As a result, at the very beginning stages in January 2020, he observed similarities to the 1918 Influenza flu. Indeed, Carter was the early advocate to shut down schools to reduce spread. Tragically, he lost his own mother to COVID.

At the same time, Joe DeRisi PhD, a biochemist at UC San Francisco was involved in the development of the ViroChip. This is used to rapidly identify viruses in bodily fluids. He led a team to develop a very early COVID-19 testing facility at the outbreak of pandemic.

Dr. Richard Hatchett an epidemiologist was another who warned early on about the coming pandemic. He also contributed to the Bush era pandemic response plan. This book is a sobering reality of what could have been. These medical professionals were stopped by the same system they were trying to save. Michael certainly makes it very clear the US does not have a healthcare system.

Tipping point ignored

Surprisingly, President George W. Bush read The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. As a result, he triggered a plan to confront the next pandemic with Rajeev Venkayya, Richard Hatchett and Carter Mecher. This plan continued through the Obama Administration, but stopped under Trump.

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Latest Read: Moneyball

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Indeed statistics and the valuation of people is a great overview of this book. Lewis is a great storyteller and respected author. Unquestionably he delivers a great story about baseball.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

They say “the book is always better than the movie.” This is so very true. If you found the movie’s portrayal of the medieval approach to drafting players, then Lewis book will take you down the rabbit hole of professional baseball.

Lewis addresses the career of Beane from high school. The odd story of Beane playing with Darryl Strawberry (also right out of high school) and Lenny Dykstra could go on forever.

Amazing the Mets saw Beane as the emerging star over Strawberry but did not support Beane’s slumps that all those scouts and coaches should have long scene coming.

Moneyball certainly offers readers a great in-depth view of how Billy hired Paul DePodesta to apply Sabermetrics allowing Beane to ‘count the cards at the blackjack table’ and make the small market team defeat Goliath.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Flat World Globalization Innovation Network OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest Read: The Undoing Project

Michael Lewis wrote The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Change Our Minds. This story is about the lives of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Honestly I am not sure why it took me so long to read this book. Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow was very enjoyable (my review here) and one that I think about often.

Lewis acknowledged this story was a result of his bestseller Moneyball.

He learned the insights to data he was seeking about baseball was already available from Kahneman and Tversky.

Daniel accepted the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work. He acknowledged it should have been a joint award with Amos, who died from cancer eight years earlier.

Kahneman and Tversky focused on behavioral economics known as heuristics in judgment and decision-making. Their unique collaboration proved how unreliable human intuition can be. The results of their research can be staggering. For over twenty years they worked to prove our minds play tricks on us. This is simply based upon inaccurate memories and false stereotypes.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Innovation Network OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest Read: Flash Boys

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis is a remarkable Wall Street story. Lewis lays out a series of interwoven stories that result in flaws around High Frequency Trading (HFT). While not the subject of a SEC investigation, the book’s publication has resulted in fines for companies trading in less-than-honest environments.

Flash Boys begins with the story of Sergey Aleynikov. Sergey is a talented programmer who is key to this story. We meet him as he faces prosecution.

The early chapters involve cutting fiber optic cable runs via Spread Networks from Chicago to New Jersey, This was most appealing to me. There was an understanding that trades could be altered in measurements of just milliseconds. 4 milliseconds is the timeframe trading companies needed in order to gain an advantage against their trading competitors. 4 milliseconds!

Enter the ability for large corporate banking firms to trade within their own dark pools. The practice of front running was taken to a new level with millisecond transfers. It adds up to shifts in profits away from smaller traders to benefit Wall Street banks.

The idea of milliseconds sounded strange at first. It is impressive to learn how trading firms and large banks were pouring money into advanced networks. Yet this resulted in the 2010 Flash Crash. Most could not understand how computers could cause the market to crash. It was just the beginning of questionable trading practices.

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Education Globalization Reading

Latest read: The Big Short

Credit default swaps — those infamous three words: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis is a fast-paced, right-to-the-point story about CDS and the collapse of Wall Street.  While recent best sellers have addressed big players and multiple companies involved in the crash Lewis’s focus is just credit default swaps, how they were born, who made millions and how American taxpayers got burned in the end.

the big shortCriminal insanity with a slice of reality over a ton of F-bombs.  I found it hard to put down and actually ripped through the book in a single night.

Lewis follows the few hedge fund managers who actually predicted the collapse, how they managed to bide their time and padded their wallets by betting against subprime loans.  Crowdsourcing at it’s best….or worst?

Steve Eisman, Michael Burry, and Howie Hubler all have interesting roles in the credit swap and collapse (among others) that combine to document how greed, pure greed and outright criminal theft led to the economic collapse of financial giants and ruined our country.

Steve Eisman was blunt — to say the least when insulting financial CEOs but he was right all along about the coming collapse.

Why didn’t others listen to him?  Maybe its how the game is stacked to reward the few and control the governing agencies.  Wall Street views S&P and Moody’s as the guys unable to survive at a brokerage so they work outside the real game.  Lewis has much more to show how the game is stacked for the wealthy and against middle America and especially the poor.

Maybe the best part was his explanation of how Wall Street actually pays S&P and Moody’s for their credit ratings….

Hubler made the worst trade in the history of Wall Street. He lost $9 Billion on a single trade for Morgan Stanley.  And yet he was permitted to leave with a $100 million bonus.  $9 B I L L I O N and he walks unscathed?  Lewis briefly touches on how his actions were covered up by Morgan Stanley and buried from the light of day.

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