Originally published in 1987, THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES tells the story of a hapless Sherman McCoy. Yet underlying this dramatic farce is a powerful story about race and class in the criminal justice system. One finds in this Tom Wolfe novel Wall Street crooks, overzealous headline-grabbing prosecutors, ambitious muckraking reporters, and opportunistic preachers. Email: Dschultz .Ī period novel from the headlines of the 1980s, THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES overwhelms readers with all the drama, greed, ego, and excess of that decade with characters reminiscent of real life players in New York City. Reviewed by David Schultz, Graduate School of Management, Hamline University. It's therefore a good idea to check the terms and conditions of any product, shop around, and switch if you can get a better deal elsewhere.By Tom Wolfe. Research has revealed that a significant number of people aren't even aware that investment platforms charge for their services.Ĭustomer inertia means firms have little incentive to give their existing customers the best terms, and loyal customers can frequently find themselves on worse terms than newcomers. The financial-services industry gets away with excessive fees through ignorance and apathy.

Some fees aren't disclosed at all, but are implicit like the low interest rates on current accounts that enable banks to make money from 'free' banking. While some of these fees are disclosed upfront, others are hidden in the small print (for example, large bank charges for going over your overdraft limit). An example is those pension companies that charge large sums for a ten-minute consultation to set up a pension. Lessons for investorsįrom investment banks to your pension fund, the financial-services industry is very good at tacking on fees to every transaction, even if the service adds little or no value.

While these crumbs may not seem a lot, 'if you pass around enough slices of a cake', she tells the daughter, 'then pretty soon you have enough crumbs to make a gigantic cake'. After he tries and fails, his wife Judy steps in, comparing bond underwriting to slicing up a cake that someone else has baked 'but every time you hand somebody a slice of the cake a tiny little bit comes off, like a little crumb and you can keep that'. Near the start of his book, McCoy's daughter asks him to explain what he does for a living. The subsequent legal fees and lawsuits leave him penniless, while his wife leaves him, taking his daughter. Although Maria was behind the wheel, the manipulations of a corrupt community activist and the press means that McCoy ends up being charged.

Bonfire of the vanities book cover