Jake Losh > Recent Status Updates

"The conclusion... of the M&A boom and bust in the 1990s is the same. Shareholder value must be read as a political strategy to monopolize corporate control and advocate for 'the demands of financial interest to reap high returns' in a very short amount of time. This logic of shareholder value imposed certain practices that 'victimized the poorly protected parties such as workers, suppliers, and host communities'"

"To be considered 'smart' on Wall Street is to be implicated in a web of situated practices and ideologies, co-produced through the interactions of multiple institutions, processes, and American culture at large, which confer authority and legitimacy... The culture of smartness is not simply a quality of Wall Street, but a currency, a driving force productive of both profit accumulation and global prowess."

"The gradual decline of... caveat emptor... is not a story of the improving moral development of the Western world; it's a reflection of the gradual understanding on the part of capital-market operators... that if you stopped robbing people blind with stock pools and takeover rumors, you would... make more money overall by robbing them through trading commissions and management fees."