Purchase
The Rise of the Speculator and the Origins of the World's Biggest Markets
Basic Books
January 2011
On Sale: December 28, 2010
240 pages ISBN: 0465018432 EAN: 9780465018437 Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction | Self-Help Money
In The Futures, Emily Lambert, senior writer at Forbes
magazine, tells us the rich and dramatic history of the
Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade,
which together comprised the original, most bustling futures
market in the world. She details the emergence of the
futures business as a kind of meeting place for gamblers and
farmers and its subsequent transformation into a
sophisticated electronic market where contracts are traded
at lightning-fast speeds. Lambert also details the
disastrous effects of Wall Street's adoption of the futures
contract without the rules and close-knit social bonds that
had made trading it in Chicago work so well. Ultimately
Lambert argues that the futures markets are the real "free"
markets and that speculators, far from being mere parasites,
can serve a vital economic and social function given the
right architecture. The traditional futures market, she
explains, because of its written and cultural limits, can
serve as a useful example for how markets ought to work and
become a tonic for our current financial ills.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|