Bear trap

Greed and scandal almost ruined Wall Street in the eighties. Technology and the lightning-fast movement of money around the globe are combining to complete the job in the nineties. Wall Street is dying. The world's financial capital, grossly mismanaged, over-weight, and sclerotic, is caught in a bear trap from which it cannot escape. Paul Gibson, a long-time financial journalist, goes behind the daily headlines and explains, in a lively and provocative manner, why Wall Street won't work anymore. The financial community is undergoing its greatest changes in recent memory and is learning a bitter truth. Computers and competition make it impossible to earn profits the old-fashioned way, in underwriting or by selling stocks. And the new ethic sweeping the land will not tolerate self-dealing and fraud. Chronicling three decades of regulatory and technological changes, Bear Trap examines the gradual decentralization of the financial markets and the shifts in power that eventually let London and Tokyo challenge New York's supremacy. It is a tale of the evolution of global money, where vast pools of capital - in pension and mutual funds - are bypassing Wall Street. Armed with their own com