An Ethnography Of 'Wall Street' By Karen Ho

attracted to Greenwood but it became a thriving community by developing economics and keeping Black dollars in the community. ,

In a speech by Mary Elizabeth Lease, “Wall Street Owns The Country”, she mentioned that this nation is a nation of inconsistencies. The main things she wanted to state was the nation’s economics and political woes because of the government was ruled based on the monetary value by wall street that cause people to suffer. Furthermore, she said that the welfare of the people was no longer considered by the government as a priority but money was. Most of the actions made by the government did not benefit people anymore. The government asked people to go to work and raise a big crop. So the people did as the government said, but the crops were still not enough because the people were “overpopulated”, according to the government. Therefore, people

Black Wall Street in Greenwood, Oklahoma: The Destruction and Historical Erasure of a Black Ethnic Enclave

Shareholder value revolution is a notion described in the book “Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street” by Karen Ho. Shareholder value revolution is a shift of focus of corporations’ managers away from serving the interests of all the constituents of the corporation towards serving the interests solely of a shareholder class. As it was described by Karen Ho, shareholder value revolution came about as a result of the inefficiencies created by the conglomerate wave in the 1960s. These inefficiencies caused the takeover movement in the 1980s that in turn reinforced the interests of shareholders. According to Ho (2009), “In this worldview, corporation exist for the sole benefit of shareholders, and any attempt to separate shareholder interests from those of the corporation was selfish and nonsensical.” (p.

Back in the 1920s, Black Wall Street, the name fittingly given to one of the most affluent all-Black communities in America, was bombed from the air and burned to the ground by mobs of envious Whites. This area was known for being one of the most successful and wealthiest black communities in the United States during the early 20th Century. Sadly, due to the area creating great wealth for the black community is was destroyed in a riot caused by the Ku Klux clan.

Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind discuss the company Enron’s executives and how success made the executives lose touch with common decencies such as working alongside with women. This piece shows the imbalance with the treatment of sexes in the workplace and how money makes people insensitive to what is around them. The authors want to reach an audience of common people. They use the fall of Enron to warn about what happens when a business is lead with weak morals. McLean and Elkind shift the tone of the passages from exciting stories about the executives, to pointing out how the glitzy lifestyles are a façade to their collapsing business. This strategy makes the reader go from envy to concern about the priorities of the company.

medical facilities, theaters, hotels, banks and retail stores. Black Wall Street brought great African Americans from across the world, such as, Booker T. Washington, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Madame C.J. Walker; this is Black excellence at its finest. Ultimately, Black Wall Street was burned to the ground by Klux Klan members and was never rebuilt.

which is an Ethos appeal to voters who believed that Wall Street controlled all of the candidates

This idea of ‘smartness’ being linked with the position of an upper-class man, was a universal want, especially of those who were not of the upper-class before. By creating this sense of superiority in a financial hierarchy, the investment bankers were able to reach the ego of the naïve undergraduate students. Constantly advertising this idea that the students were indeed “the best”, “the greatest”, and “the brightest” (Ho 167), investment bankers were able to persuade to the students that Wall Street was the place to be; a luxurious place to be filled with rich people with power and respect. With this aspect, an environment was created that that aroused an interest within students to pursue a field in banking. This way of marketing is very similar to the marketing campaign in Watters’ text, and Watters’ research can help better understand how investment bankers try beguile students into pursuing a career the bankers themselves want

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, many commentators attempted to analyze the roots of the conflict from a political or economic perspective. Anthropologist Karen Ho, a veteran of Wall Street as well as an academic, attempted to understand the reason that Wall Street behaves the way it does in her 2009 anthropological study of American finance entitled Liquidated: An ethnography of Wall Street from a cultural perspective. The central paradox with which Ho begins her book is: " the economy experienced not only record corporate profits and the longest rising stock market ever, but also record downsizings," further concentrating the wealth in America (Ho 2009: 1-2). But how can corporations grow richer as the American public as a whole grows poorer? Corporations no longer view themselves as responsible for taking care of their employees, creating good products, or serving their original mission. Instead, the focus is on generating shareholder wealth (Ho 2009:3). Shareholders, not the larger public, have become the symbolic and real focus of firm strategy. The shareholder "symbolized and 'stood in' for the whole of the corporation and became the sole locus of concern and analysis" during the time Ho conducted her study in the late 1990s and continues to this day (Ho 2009:175)

public, according to anthropologists these behaviours are justified through their own moral values and social practices - (which are ultimately determined by capitalism). Many anthropologists have studied Wall Street extensively, and they can corroborate the negative view mentioned throughout this essay. Their work has also shed light onto the manner in which Wall Street workers view one-another. In her research paper “Situating Global Capitalism”, anthropologist Karen Ho notes how the financial markets continue to regulate themselves by means of neoliberal capitalism. She speaks of how institutions such as Wall Street seek to exploit the government to gain financial control of the economy, in which existing assists of the economy are used

There is a sense of complexity today that has led many to believe the individual investor has little chance of competing with professional brokers and investment firms. However, Malkiel states this is a major misconception as he explains in his book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”. What does a random walk mean? The random walk means in terms of the stock market that, “short term changes in stock prices cannot be predicted”. So how does a rational investor determine which stocks to purchase to maximize returns? Chapter 1 begins by defining and determining the difference in investing and speculating. Investing defined by Malkiel is the method of “purchasing assets to gain profit in the form of reasonably

In his book, Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street, Peter L. Bernstein examines the innovative financial work of various academics that helped shape modern Wall Street. Bernstein sets out to show that Wall Street is in fact a fundamental and useful model to follow, rather than something to be feared. He points out that, “By combining the linkage between risk and reward with the combative nature of the free market, these academics brought new insights into what Wall Street is all about and devised new methods for investors to manage their capital.” (2) These impressive scholars have incorporated scientific measurement to the art of finance, forever

'The Wolf of the Wall Street', written by Jordan Belfort, is a high end structured novel which purely embarks the reader onto a journey exploring one's destined route to social statistic success as well as rotten failure. Self-discovery can possibly conclude to radical reinforcements of amorality, revolting and great human attributes. The story of Jordan Belfort primarily explored these multifaceted concepts through two core values of trust and loyalty. With the benefits of using third person perspective, Belfort can exemplify his past through strong subsidisation of literacy techniques used throughout his novel. Conclusively, Jordan Belfort uses the narration to give his audience a brief insight to his ongoing self-discovery.

This work will examine the case 'Banking Industry Meltdown: The Ethical Financial Risk Derivatives" and determine which moral philosophy is most applicable to an understanding of the banking industry meltdown and explain the rationale. The case study will be analyzed and white-collar crimes considered as to whether they are different in any substantive manner from other more blue-collar crimes. This study will determine and discuss the role that corporate culture played in banking industry scenario and the response will be supported with specific examples. This work will postulate how leaders within the banking industry could have used their influence to avert the industry meltdown.