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jazzyrandy 's review for:
I'm torn on this rating.
4.0
For the topic, the inside information into a life of finance/wealth-building, hardscrabble Eastern Europe, Yeltsin's and Putin's Russias, and the rest, was very well done and nice to discover that which I did not know. The "plot" (this is non-fiction, but the storyline that makes up most of the book has a beginning, middle and end) is suspenseful, well paced, and engaging. The people are characters I liked reading about.
2.0
For the sense of entitlement combined with the author's seeming obliviousness to the irony of his Russia problem. Despite his intelligence, either the author is willfully ignorant and blissful in his ignorance, or he recognizes his sense of entitlement and the similarity between how he made his fortune and how Russian agents attempted to take it from him.
THE PROBLEM
I have with the book is this. Browder repeatedly paints himself at a roguish imp, hardworking, naive, dutiful, and other positively viewed traits of underdogs who overcome hardship. Yet he comes from a family of highly educated people, professors at elite universities, and he himself attended grad school at Stanford, while lazing away his early adulthood doing nothing but enjoying life. So the real-life set-up is incongruent with how he repeatedly tries to portay himself.
Then, as a young worker in eastern Europe, while the story paints the picture of a fish out of water, struggling and earning every hard won scrap of compensation by his wit and effort, his first big break turns out to be about how he can use the system to transfer wealth from poor people/countries to himself. And when he sets up shop in Russia, he scales up his wealth transfer to immense levels, moving billions from impoverished Russians (via a poorly designed domestic program to help them) to his clients and himself. But he repeatedly tries to convince the reader this is all okay because he's working within the rules of the system of business, within the laws of the countries in which he's operating, within his personal set of morals.
Later, when Russian actors try to transfer his wealth to themselves, he climbs upon his moral high horse and gallups all the way to a transformation where he ultimately views himself as a Human Rights Activist. Yes, the Russian actors use more physical means to effect the transfer of wealth, whereas Browder uses financial instruments, lawyers, and takes advantage of poorly worded economic equity programs. But the end result is both Browder and the Russian actors are primarily interested in transferring wealth from others to themselves.
And the fact that Browder either never realizes the obvious similarities between his actions and those of the Russian actors, or he realizes the similarities but uses misdirection to never admit the similarities, is too much for me to chalk up to "just one of those things."
This book is very much worth reading. And I've decided the "problems" I have with the book might actually be positives. Ultimately, it's like looking inside the mind of a serial killer, to see how a guy like Browder sees himself, justifies his actions while concurrently criticizing others for doing the same thing. It's illuminating to see how someone engaged in Capitalism On Steroids views the world. It's edifying to see his words to explain his views on "the system."
4.0
For the topic, the inside information into a life of finance/wealth-building, hardscrabble Eastern Europe, Yeltsin's and Putin's Russias, and the rest, was very well done and nice to discover that which I did not know. The "plot" (this is non-fiction, but the storyline that makes up most of the book has a beginning, middle and end) is suspenseful, well paced, and engaging. The people are characters I liked reading about.
2.0
For the sense of entitlement combined with the author's seeming obliviousness to the irony of his Russia problem. Despite his intelligence, either the author is willfully ignorant and blissful in his ignorance, or he recognizes his sense of entitlement and the similarity between how he made his fortune and how Russian agents attempted to take it from him.
THE PROBLEM
I have with the book is this. Browder repeatedly paints himself at a roguish imp, hardworking, naive, dutiful, and other positively viewed traits of underdogs who overcome hardship. Yet he comes from a family of highly educated people, professors at elite universities, and he himself attended grad school at Stanford, while lazing away his early adulthood doing nothing but enjoying life. So the real-life set-up is incongruent with how he repeatedly tries to portay himself.
Then, as a young worker in eastern Europe, while the story paints the picture of a fish out of water, struggling and earning every hard won scrap of compensation by his wit and effort, his first big break turns out to be about how he can use the system to transfer wealth from poor people/countries to himself. And when he sets up shop in Russia, he scales up his wealth transfer to immense levels, moving billions from impoverished Russians (via a poorly designed domestic program to help them) to his clients and himself. But he repeatedly tries to convince the reader this is all okay because he's working within the rules of the system of business, within the laws of the countries in which he's operating, within his personal set of morals.
Later, when Russian actors try to transfer his wealth to themselves, he climbs upon his moral high horse and gallups all the way to a transformation where he ultimately views himself as a Human Rights Activist. Yes, the Russian actors use more physical means to effect the transfer of wealth, whereas Browder uses financial instruments, lawyers, and takes advantage of poorly worded economic equity programs. But the end result is both Browder and the Russian actors are primarily interested in transferring wealth from others to themselves.
And the fact that Browder either never realizes the obvious similarities between his actions and those of the Russian actors, or he realizes the similarities but uses misdirection to never admit the similarities, is too much for me to chalk up to "just one of those things."
This book is very much worth reading. And I've decided the "problems" I have with the book might actually be positives. Ultimately, it's like looking inside the mind of a serial killer, to see how a guy like Browder sees himself, justifies his actions while concurrently criticizing others for doing the same thing. It's illuminating to see how someone engaged in Capitalism On Steroids views the world. It's edifying to see his words to explain his views on "the system."