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Michael Lewis is the preeminent financial journalist of our age. In many ways, Michael Lewis is the only financial journalist of our age. No other author on finance is so widely read. His articles are widely taken as something like the conventional wisdom. This is a great tragedy, as, despite the fact that Michael Lewis is unarguably a great writer, he’s a terrible journalist. Reading a Michael Lewis article on finance is much like watching the evening news. It gives you the impression that you’re well informed, but in reality, you’ve been deceived by noise.
Consider his latest Vanity Fair missive. Michael Lewis attempts to get to the bottom of the German side of the financial crisis. This is an interesting and tremendously important subject. Why? Because Germans didn’t have a financial crisis. This, despite the fact that the German Landesbanks were the counterparties in a good fraction of the printing of shitty bonds (aka, Germans own a lot of the worthless bonds printed up by American banks). This despite the fact that the Germans own a bunch of shitty Greek government paper. This despite the fact that Germany was incinerated and invaded in WW-2, and half her territory and a third of her population incarcerated under communism until 1989. Yet, Germany is a prosperous and pleasant nation to live in; one of the best in the world. Germany manages to have lower unemployment than the US, despite all their unions and socialistic regulations for hiring and firing: laws which Harvard economist ding a lings will insist would be the ruination of the American economy. How did the Germans manage this?
Michael Lewis doesn’t know; he’s too busy making turd jokes. I’m not exaggerating. Some jackass gave him Alan Dundes’ imbecilic, “Life is a Chicken Coop Ladder.” This is a book documenting alleged German folklore surrounding scatology, and drawing the conclusion that Germans are prone to killing Jews because of inadequate toilet training. If you think that’s some kind of joke: it isn’t; the guy who wrote it is completely serious. The local Kraut-hating bigot who insisted I read it was serious as well. Lewis takes it at face value also, and uses it as an excuse to regale us with Teutonic turd humor for a significant fraction of the essay.
Lewis’ article is some funny and well written bigotry, including the obligatory Nazi jokes all English speaking writers are required to make when discussing German culture. Of course, if he did an article on some cannibalistic African hell hole in the same “light hearted” spirit, he’d be hounded by the Southern Poverty Law Center for the rest of his life as an evil cousin-fucking racist. Not that there is anything wrong with that: some of my best friends and all that. I’m just pointing it out.
Lewis has, according to his report, spent a grand total of about a week of his adult life in Germany. His report, like the rest of the VF roadtrip series, is an adolescent travel story: some ethnic stereotypes, with some bad financial analysis thrown in. It’s true, the Landesbanks were royally ass-raped by shady American bankers. It’s also true that Germans tend to be gullible and trust in authorities, such as the American credit rating agencies. This is a racial characteristic of virtually all Germans I have known; German-American or straight from the tap. It is also true that Germans tend to be orderly people with a deep seated thirst for justice, equity and social harmony. I don’t think this has anything to do with poop, and I don’t think Germans have any more interest in turds or mud wrestling than anybody else. The real story of Germany is their banking systems is awesome, despite the fact that the actual banks were run by retards (rather than thieves), and their economy is doing really well. Somehow the great journalist finds it more interesting making poop jokes, rather than getting to the bottom of this. Why do the Germans do so well, despite their getting the wrong end of the financial disaster?
The last Lewis article I read was about Iceland. Again, he gives a fair, if bigoted characterization of Icelanders: fearless risk takers who belong on fishing boats or strongman contests rather than trading floors. No real argument from me on that one: Icelanders are brave men. His silly prescription to heal the Icelandic economy? Let Icelandic feminists run their banks. I’ve got a better idea: why not let Germans run their banks? Germans have a longer track record, and have unarguably contributed more to banking, human civilization and the ordering thereof than all the feminists in all nations in all of human history.
The important story from Iceland, he missed completely: they told the EU and the world financial system to eat shit, and are actually better off for it. It was obvious they were going to, but Lewis didn’t raise the possibility in his 2009 article, or any subsequent ones. The other real story of the Iceland tragedy: there are actual villains, and they’re not brave honest-faced Icelandic fishermen. Lewis is too chicken shit to name them (he could have; I’m pretty sure wikileaks did). I’ll name them: the Tchenguiz Brothers -a couple of Iraqi guys from the Anti-Semitic central casting department who ripped Kaupthing off to the tune of 2 Billion dollars, and the fat bag of fecal debris who let them get away with it: Sigurdur Einarsson.
Lewis’ assertions about the alleged German love of turds doesn’t even pass the sniff test. He claims the Germans have the only toilet museum in the world? Well, I know of one in South Korea off the top of my head. Feeding the phrase into google nets one in New Delhi, one in Massachusetts, one in Texas, one in Ukraine, one in Great Britain and at least one on the goddamned internet. Who checks Lewis’ facts? My editor would shit on me from a tremendous height for making such an unsubstantiated remark, and he’s not even a little bit German. Similarly, Lewis got an assertion about Irish parliamentary proceedings wrong too: mostly because it got in the way of a good racial stereotype about my lazy, potato-eating, Bog Negro cousins. If he can’t get crappy little facts like this right … why should anyone believe him about anything else?
It’s difficult to resist mentioning Lewis the prophet. The way he runs around unexplaining things, you’d think he predicted our present financial predicament. He seems to claim to: Liars Poker was his prediction, dontcha know. While it was a great book, his memory is faulty. The internet is forever, or so I am told. Right before the poop hit the prop in 2007, Lewis was making farty noises at the heavy hitters at Davos who were warning of immanent dangers, calling them, “wimps, ninnies and pointless skeptics.” I owe Janet Tavakoli an apology: she was right about the guy. I’ll go out on a limb as a forecaster: his assertion that the Germans will continue to pay for lazy Greeks and other lazy Southern Europeans is dead wrong. I haven’t been to Germany in over a decade, excepting for airport fly throughs, and I know that for a fact.
Michael Lewis is part of the establishment. His position in the financial community is based on celebrity and patronage rather than actually knowing anything. The man lives in Berkeley for crying out loud. If you want to really understand what is going on in the world, you’re not going to get anything out of listening to a perfumed prince of the media-banking-government complex. No, I don’t think Lewis is in on any conspiracies; I just think it’s easier and more comfortable for him to be funny and misleading than right.
34 comments
Spot on.
There was an interesting part to the article, but it was just one or two paragraphs about what seemed to be economic geography and the like explaining why Germany was doing so well (it’s the euro, it forces the deficit countries to rebalance), but that was about it.
There were two other pieces this week that addressed the situation in a more serious matter about why Germany was doing so well:
Michael Pettis explains the consequence: http://mpettis.com/2011/08/some-predictions-for-the-rest-of-the-decade/
Fistful of euro’s also had a good take on it in “it’s the geography stupid” http://fistfulofeuros.net/
There were a few allusions that brushed on the real story of the German system. That’s what makes it so annoying. A few bits of wisdom, covered in turd jokes.
You are dead right about the Germans not going to bail out their mismanaged Euro compadres. I’ve been here on the ground for the past six months and the rage among the people over what Angela Merkel has done just to this point is palpable. She is about to lose her coalition in the German Parliament and when that happens, all bets are off. Thanks for the linkage Scott.
Thanks for the article: it was a great one. I recommend everyone read it and check out the videos: http://veritasaculeus.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/why-iceland-is-important/
You don’t even need to travel to Germany to know they’re going to be hopping mad. You don’t even need to ever speak with an actual German person to know this. The Kipling Poem I linked to is enough.
“The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite. But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right. When he stands like an ox in the furrow "“ with his sullen set eyes on your own, And grumbles, ‘This isn’t fair dealing,’ my son, leave the Saxon alone.
“You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture your Picardy spears; But don’t try that game on the Saxon; you’ll have the whole brood round your ears. From the richest old Thane in the county to the poorest chained serf in the field, They’ll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you are wise, you will yield.
That’s also one my favorites but I hadn’t read it in years until you linked it. Speaks to my Germanic blood (even though it’s kind of bastardized with some English, go figure). I hope you don’t mind if I add you to my blogroll?
Of course the people are enraged. That’s because they only see the cost and not the benefit. The fact is Germany has benefited tremendously from being in the EU. Euro gives germany a trade advantage in exports that it would not otherwise have.
The problem is that whenever something good happens, the politicians take the credit for themselves. Whenever something bad happens they blame the EU. They don’t realize that such partisan politicking has real consequences when trying to implement the right policy.
Well, there are two sides to every coin –
I would suggest that the PIGS derived greater benefits from the Euro than either Germany or France, by having a “harder” currency than they had before, and being able to borrow more cheaply with greater access to credit.
The problem is they squandered those advantages and instead of using that credit & cheap interest to invest in productive assets, they blew it on extravagant consumption and mismanaged government finances, just like they did before they joined the Euro. Now they want rich Germany to bail them out so they can continue to spend recklessly and rack up huge deficits??? Total & utter foolishness if that is what they expect – The people I’ve talked to in Germany won’t be fooled again.
To somehow think that these poor Euro cousins’ shutting out German exports out of spite will doom Germany is more than a stretch as Pettis suggests – they need Germany more than Germany needs them and I suspect Germany has its sights set on much bigger fish, namely the BRICs…which on a combined basis, dwarfs the rest of Europe & US & Japan combined.
If they need Germany more than Germany needs them, then why is Germany bailing them out? This was actually one of the better pieces in Lewis’ poop-joke ridden article: bailing out the PIIGS is a roundabout way of bailing out German banks.
There are two sides to a debt contract, there is a creditor and there is a debtor, the debtor can only borrow as long as the creditor is willing to lend and the creditor can only lend as long as the borrower is willing to borrow. The story is a tad bit more complicated than heroes and villains.
Yeah, having read the Irish and German articles, its as if he is using some kind of prattish template, bringing up the German quasi-preoccupation with shyte in an economic article is kind of strange, me thinks he has got carried away with himself on several troubling levels. In a similar racial reduction par excellence, he says the Irish belief in fairy rings is the cause of them being sluggish in spotting the truth behind a property bubble"¦ Using racism as a literary device to tie your benign brain-farts together is out of order, someone should break his fucking nose.
Political correctness leaves us like a bunch of tittering Victorians in the presence of overt racial stereotypes like the ones Lewis uses. It’s an underserved market, and Lewis is a clever man for doing what he’s done. I don’t mind it terribly, when it’s relevant or interesting. None (or very few anyway) of the stereotypes he’s been trucking in have much to do with the actual stories he’s covering.
For example: I firmly believe the Germans to be a race of people who are orderly, hard working and extremely prone to Teutonic rage at injustice. That’s why their bankers make only $150k a year, and aren’t a pack of thieves. I also think this is why the German economy and banking system is still functioning, despite all the problems they’ve been faced with: their system was designed to serve the people, rather than the other way around. It has nothing to do with any alleged fascination with turds.
I’d also really like to see the guy try that sort of thing with a designated victim group. I have a bit of German on the distaff side; must be coming through.
Toilet maker Toto has a museum in Tokyo: http://shinjuku.keizai.biz/phone/headline.php?id=877
You’re absolutely right. Lewis is a giant shill.
Agreed.
I missed the author’s name (not who posed it). That said I stopped reading after all that was being said was bat mouthing Lewis. No facts; Just that Lewis is this and, that over and over?? While it maybe true, it’s not about how you feel, it’s about the facts, and proving it with your facts. So what did you really learn here?
If you stopped reading, how do you feel qualified to judge the merits of what I wrote?
Hi Scott,
The first 5 ~ 6 paragraphs contained ALL opinion of the writer, with no footnotes or links to substantiate any of the “views”. I for one don’t know how far they are reaching to make all that I was reading. Really, it (the post) was so biased that it may have been the work of a nut. I see you post it, but no name at the end? Some of us want to know “who, what and why”. It’s the why part missing after the opin (like what quote from Vanity Fair would support the view). What I was looking for was Lewis supports this economic policy and, it has been shown to have these short comings ……
There is a very obvious link back to his essay. If you disagree with something I’ve said about it, feel free to get specific. If you haven’t read it, or my essay, well, um, I dunno what to tell you.
You write, “He claims the Germans have the only toilet museum in the world? Well, I know of one in South Korea off the top of my head. Feeding the phrase into google nets one in New Deli, one in Massachusetts, one in Texas, one in Ukraine, one in Great Britain and at least one on the goddamned internet. Who checks Lewis' facts?”
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