Online Crime Knows No Bounds

Here is a link to a book review about crimes that take place on line and across national boundaries.  The internet affords challenges to national boundaries.  We see that in the Wikileaks & Julian Assange situation.  We see that with online gambling, such as online poker.  The Pentagon is promoting the idea of cyberwarfare that will take place across national boundaries.  In fact, the US flies drones over Pakistan from workstations located at airbases in the US.  EBay and Yahoo and Google have all encountered that in the Middle East and China, which have different ideas from those in the US about what it is appropriate for individual citizens to see.

It isn't surprising that crimes take place across national boundaries, too.  Here are the two books from the review:

Worm: The First Digital World War. By Mark Bowden. Atlantic Monthly Press, 245 pages, $27.50

DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You. By Misha Glenny. House of Anansi, 296 pages, $29.95

Havana

TJ English's book Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution brought me a much better understanding of Meyer Lansky.  It's pretty easy to read.  The book is now in paperback and on Amazon  here.
   
English has  new book out --- The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge.    



 

Teapot Dome

Why does corruption in American Government persist notwithstanding the lesson that the country should have learned from the Teapot Dome Scandal?  See The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country, by Laton McCartney.  Click  here. Or here   Here's the review in The New York Times.

Al Capone

Recently, I finished the Kindle version of Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster, by Jonathan Eig.  Here's the link to the web page.  Like so many books, the book is longer than the really meaty material.  The author obviously found some interesting material in the records, and the author works hard to show how there's a secret plot.  But modern Americans know that when government fixates on a target----like terrorists today---the government has lots of weapons at its disposal that may bypass the normal limits that the government usually observes.

The author was able to show how what we think of as modern political attitudes such as "law and order" and anti-immigrant prejudice have roots that run way back in American politics.  

Oh, and it portrays Elliot Ness in a whole new way.  Myth-making about law enforcement has a long history.

IceMan

I read Iceman, by Philip DiCarlo.  It's about Richard Kuklinski, a killer who worked for organized crime, but who also killed people on his own.  The book needed editing.  The book had duplicative  passages and there was padding in some places.  However, the material is so chilling, that I read it avidly.  It was hard to put down.

Bear Stearns' fall - House of Cards

HOUSE OF CARDS

A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street

By William D. Cohan (468 pp. Doubleday. $27.95) (http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=73897)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/books/review/Lieber-t.html?ref=review

Cohan is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Graduate School of Business. He spoke at a recent Columbia alumni event. He had recently published this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07cohanWEB.html

James Stewart was the interviewer at the event (http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1165270051276/JRN_Profile_C/1165270081398/JRNFacultyDetail.htm).

These fellows who get along in the business generally accept things, even when they don't agree with them. Charm is important. Cohan was more dyspeptic than the others on the stage. I liked him.

I'm reminded of three lessons we learned in the S&L debacle of the early 199o's.
First, when Congress changes the rules, the outcome is hard to predict and likely to be hurtful to many.
Second, the fellows running major financial institutions don't really know what they are doing.
Third, don't borrow short and lend long. That is, in essence, what Bear Stearns was doing by borrowing overnight and owning securities. People criticize the high amount of leverage at places like Bear Stearns, but you don't hear much criticism of the practice of lending long while borrowing short.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_D._Cohan

Kate Kelly also has a book on the fall of Bear Stearns, called Street Fighters.

Here's a comment inspired by her book: http://www.theconglomerate.org/2009/06/larry-ribstein-on-street-fighters.html AND http://www.theconglomerate.org/2009/06/street-fighters.html

Colfax Massacre

The book is THE DAY FREEDOM DIED: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of Reconstruction. Author is Charles Lane. Publisher is Henry Holt and Co.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for the Colfax massacre:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colfax_Massacre

The book is available for Kindle at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Freedom-Died-Massacre-Reconstruction/dp/0805083421

The book is now out in paperback:
http://us.macmillan.com/thedayfreedomdied

Here's a link to a review in the New York Times last year:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/books/review/Boyle-t.html?pagewanted=print

Here's a review from New Orleans
http://blog.nola.com/susanlarson/2008/03/colfax_massacre.html