Wall Street People: True Stories of Today's Masters and Moguls (a review)

Abstract

This enjoyable and instructive book is a treasure trove for students of financial history—with sketches of luminaries and rascals, anecdotes, and descriptions of the sources of various financial products.

Notes

¹Several years after the fact, a spokesman for Meriwether said that the bet was proposed by the late John O'Grady, a Salomon sales manager, rather than Gutfreund. Gutfreund acknowledged playing liar's poker but denied making “megabets.” See “Eating People Is Wrong” (1989), Pressman (1990), and Carroll (1998).

²The Milken profile is drawn from Stewart's book Den of Thieves (1991), about which Chris Welles (1991) wrote “For all its vivid details, the credibility of Thieves is marred by questions about whether Stewart's relationship with his sources colored the book.” A more acerbic critic called Stewart's book “a detailed and entertaining account, but dishonest,” adding that it “purveys hotly disputed allegations as incontrovertible fact” (Balls et al. 1991).