Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia Review

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(More customer reviews)The author, an anthropologist, explores the phenomenon of second-hand clothes being exported from the West into Zambia, where they are sold on as "luxury goods". She argues against the idea that this is a North-South neo-colonial or aid transaction, asserting that Zambians are not just passive recipients of recycled clothes, but active consumers making informed (or at least broadly understood) cultural choices. She also explores how clothes, as cultural signifiers, give the wearer meaning in the specific Zambian social context. She also identifies reasons why people choose salaula and its impact on culture and "modernization" in Zambia Hansen explains the whole commodity chain of procurement, distribution and consumption of second-hand clothes. The reader may be surprised to learn that clothes given away to charities may be sold to exporters for resale in developing countries at all.

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Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London Review

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(More customer reviews)The pit trader postures and screams to establish dominance. He uses physical and psychological intimidation to scare off potential competitors. A certain amount of cooperation and even trust is necessary for him to be successful. It's surprising that Jane Goodall hasn't seen fit to study these young primates.
Caitlin Zaloom, a cultural anthropologist, lived among the savages at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE) for several years, long enough for them to become accustomed to her presence and even, to a point, trust her or at least ignore her. A woman in the trading pit is about as rare as a human living among the gorillas.
There are some pretty compelling reasons to study the trading pits. They are disappearing and soon most trading will be done electronically from all over the world. Traders won't be in the same room with each other and shouting will get you nowhere. How will this change trading? Obviously a loud voice will no longer give a trader an advantage, but will being an alpha male still be a plus?
Zaloom looks at the traditions of traders, the architecture of the trading space, the traders' clothing and habits, how traders get their jobs and how they're trained. She learned the techniques of traders and she became a trader. It's a short book (177 pages of text plus excellent and detailed notes, bibliography, index, and photos), but it covers a lot of territory. The style is often academic, with references to Michel Foucault, for instance, but on the other hand, these are pit traders we're talking about, so you'll have to pardon their French. Zaloom describes an especially colorful London trader, Freddy, who wears khakis with holes in them that show his underwear. He picks his nose, flashes the pit, and sings and barks loudly. It's hard to imagine how the markets will survive without him.

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The Devil's Derivatives: The Untold Story of the Slick Traders and Hapless Regulators Who Almost Blew Up Wall Street . . . and Are Ready to Do It Again Review

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(More customer reviews)I received this book as a reviewer. Since I am a market participant (algo-trader) I know all too well what Mr Dunbar is talking about. It is not a personality blow by blow account like the Big Short or The Sellout. I am glad for that. It is more like Traders, Guns, and Money, but a modern accounting of where the derivatives trend has gone. On that I was very appreciative as a market participant I want to know where things are going.
If there is a bugaboo with this book, its that it is too short with its 250 pages! I would have loved more information! But hey that's me. I thought the Appendix with the timeline was a fantastic touch!

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A compelling narrative on what went wrong with our financial system-and who's to blame.From an award-winning journalist who has been covering the industry for more than a decade, The Devil's Derivatives charts the untold story of modern financial innovation-how investment banks invented new financial products, how investors across the world were wooed into buying them, how regulators were seduced by the political rewards of easy credit, and how speculators made a killing from the near-meltdown of the financial system.Author Nicholas Dunbar demystifies the revolution that briefly gave finance the same intellectual respectability as theoretical physics. He explains how bankers worldwide created a secret trillion-dollar machine that delivered cheap mortgages to the masses and riches beyond dreams to the financial innovators.Fundamental to this saga is how "the people who hated to lose" were persuaded to accept risk by "the people who loved to win." Why did people come to trust and respect arcane financial tools? Who were the bankers competing to assemble the basic components into increasingly intricate machines? How did this process achieve its own unstoppable momentum-ending in collapse, bailouts, and a public outcry against the giants of finance?Provocative and intriguing, The Devil's Derivatives sheds much-needed light on the forces that fueled the most brutal economic downturn since the Great Depression.

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