The Failure of Wall Street [antikvár]

Chapter IWALL STREET AND ITS ROLEWall Street is the center of the financial machinery that makes the global econ-omy work. Though Wall Street exists physicallythe nexus of Wall and Broad, the location of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), within eyesight of the New York Federai Reserve, the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and the gleaming headquarters of powers like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brotherswe refer to Wall Street in its conceptual and functional sense. Wall Street as a financial conduit exists as much in lower Manhattan as in midtown Manhattan, or London, or Tokyo, or the electronic sphere. In this sense of Wall Street, physical location is irrelevant, but function is not, because it's what pro-pels companies and clients.Wall Street is a large industry, made up of thousands of institutions em-ploying hundreds of thousands of people ali over the world. But at the center there is a remarkably small group that drives everything. The top dozen banking firms play a pivotal role in arranging the world's commercial and financial transactions. The list of a dozen changes periodically as banks merge, get bought out, or fade away, or as smaller firms develop strength in an area and leapfrog some of the larger institutions, but the core always remains quite small. These banks are joined by a few of the largest mutuai fund groups and the major stock and futures exchanges. The power of the Street is thus extremely concentrated. What the sector says and does helps decide the financial fate of companies, countries, and individuals. And that, as we'll see, has far-reaching implications.The Street, which has performed its pivotal role for decades, can lay claim to many successes. It does many things exceptionally well: mobilizing and plac-ing capital, creating new and innovative financial products, buying and selling