I admit to being a Michael Lewis fanboy. I consider him one of the best business writers. He has a knack for using characters as a lens to explain an issue. The issue in Flash Boys is high frequency trading. Or high speed trading. Or electronic trading. It’s a bit of a confusing mix. Uncharacteristically, … Read more »
Category: Book reviews
Weekend Reading: Busted
What do you do when the whistleblower sitting in front of you is an unreliable drug addict? Maybe you see some nugget of truth in the story. Maybe you see some way to find reliable evidence that proves that nugget of truth. Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, reporters at Philadelphia’s Daily News were confronted with … Read more »
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Movies about compliance officers are few and far between. It may surprise you to find Chris Pine playing that role in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Jack Ryan is the protagonist in Tom Clancy’s cold war thrillers. I read most of his books back in the 1980s. They were so cold war based I wondered how … Read more »
Weekend Reading: A Time to Attack
What should we do about the nuclear weapon program in Iran? The country is not complying with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Iran has four main sites being used to create weapons-grade uranium. The country has stopped short of further purifying the uranium to the concentration needed for a bomb. But once … Read more »
Weekend Reading: Fierce Patriot
General Sherman is known for burning Atlanta. That is as much I knew about him. Having been raised in Boston, my schooling in American History emphasized the Revolutionary War. But my friend and author Megan Kate Nelson has piqued my interest in the Civil War. Why did I read about Sherman? The publisher offered me … Read more »
Secure Borders
What do compliance and border security have in common? More than you might initially think. Try reading Sylvia Longmire’s Border Insecurity. Some of the issues with border security will resonate with compliance professionals. (Hopefully, you don’t have to deal with illegal immigration, human trafficking, terrorism and drug smuggling as the compliance issues at your company.) … Read more »
Private Equity at Work
Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt tried to take an academic look at private equity firms and published their results in Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street. The authors paint the world in black and white. They present the book as a question of whether private equity firms are (1) financial innovators … Read more »
Weekend Reading: The Sea & Civilization
Lincoln Paine wants to change your view of the world. He wants you to focus on the blue parts of the map that cover over 70% of the world’s surface. In his book, The Sea and Civilization, he makes that case that mankind’s technological and social adaptation to the water has been a driving force … Read more »
Best Practices Under the FCPA and Bribery Act
Tom Fox is prolific writer on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He publishes the excellent FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog. One of the downsides to a blog is that it’s a running commentary and not a narrative guide. Blogs are great for sharing ideas among practitioners. But a blog does not come together as a … Read more »
Weekend Reading: Sycamore Row
I went to law school in the early 1990s so I’m supposed to be a John Grisham fan. The lure of doe-eyed law school graduates getting hired by big law firms paying big salaries was shadowed by the sinister practices in The Firm. I did read Grisham’s first few books and stopped. I enjoyed the … Read more »