Читать книгу The Committee to Destroy the World - Lewitt Michael E. - Страница 5

As someone who has spent the last 25 years in the world of credit, I am unduly aware of the importance of acknowledging the debts we owe to other people. Despite the arguments found in the following pages, not all debts are onerous. In particular, the debts we owe other people are gifts, and it is my privilege to be able to acknowledge them publicly.

Many people like to say that life is short, but that is not true. Life is long. It is long in possibilities, long in the people we affect, and long in what lives on after we are gone. Life is also long in the people who affect us. This is my opportunity to thank the people who have enriched my life in ways that I am pleased to acknowledge here.

First and foremost, I want to thank my family. My wife Marcie is an unending source of strength and wisdom and love without whom my life would be unthinkable. I am blessed with a true life partner in every sense of the world, a wonderful friend and a wise and beautiful woman who has helped me accomplish much more than I could have on my own; I owe her everything. My children Alessia, Alexander, and Preston are the greatest gifts in our lives and have grown into warm, caring, and accomplished young adults largely due to the remarkable guidance of my wife. I could not be prouder of each of them.

My parents, Laurence and Roberta Lewitt, gave me the gifts of education, self-respect, and respect for others. They helped make me who I am and I love them very much. My father passed away shortly before publication of this book after a long and active life. He taught me to speak out and I hope that this book and the rest of my work lives up to his example. My brother David is a gifted musician and teacher who makes me proud every day.

My in-laws Lester and Peggy Engel welcomed me into their family 30 years ago and made me feel like one of their own from the first day I met them. Peggy passed away shortly before my father and she lives on in her three wonderful children and nine grandchildren. My brother-in-law Dr. Marc Engel and my sister-in-law Lesli Sugerman have always made me feel like we grew up in the same house.

When I started writing The Credit Strategist in January 2001, I had no idea whether anybody would be interested in what I had to say. Since then, the publication has taken on a life of its own. It has also introduced me to people around the country from all walks of life who have broadened my understanding of the world. I owe a great debt to my readers to whom I am enormously appreciative.

One of the greatest things to have come out of The Credit Strategist is the community of brilliant people to whom it has introduced me and who continue to educate me about the markets on a daily basis while in many cases also becoming friends. It is my great pleasure to thank them here: Peter Boockvar, Paul Brodsky, Gil Caffray, Albert Edwards, Marc Faber, Martin Fridson, Joshua Friedlander, Dennis Gartman, James Grant, Dan Greenhaus, Fred Hickey, Lacy Hunt and Van Hoisington, Ed Hyman and his team at Evercore/ISI, Doug Kass, Bill King, Andrew Lapthorne, Richard Lehmann, John Mauldin, Rafael and David Mayer, James F. Meisner, Russell Napier, Raoul Pal, Lee Partridge, Pedro J. Ramirez, David Rosenberg, Edward Scott, Kirby Shanks, Michael Shaoul, David Stockman, David Rocker, Cole Walton, Peter Warburton, Kate Welling, Christopher Whalen, Grant Williams, Christopher Wood, and Mark Yusko. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for the contents of the book.

I also continue to benefit from the enduring friendship, wisdom, and support of two of the wisest and most accomplished investors of our generation, Leon Cooperman and Steven Einhorn.

I am grateful for the support and friendship of my colleagues at The Third Friday Total Return Fund, L.P. – Michael Shatsky, Steven Artzi, Daniel Goldburg, as well as Perry Lerner, Chris Calise, Mitch Ackles, and Daniel Strachman.

My friends and colleagues Philippe Blumenthal and Greger Hamilton have helped me learn about the world outside the United States and are a constant source of wisdom and support.

I am very fortunate to enjoy the personal friendship of Dr. Paul Belsky, Gerald Brodsky, Fred and Sara Chikovsky, Mark Dern, Thomas Donatelli, Michael Felsher, Warren Greenspoon, Richard Hehman, Michael Kirsh, Donald Kittredge, Thomas Loucas, Jedd and Anna Novatt, Eric Oberg, Michael O’Rourke, Jeffrey Queen, Thomas Romero, Keith Rosenbloom, Dr. Amer Rustom, Azzam (“Skip”) Rustom, Jeffrey Schreiber, Randall Shaw, Dennis J. Stanek, Jr., Charles Swanson, John Schiller, Laurence Silverman, Laura Stein, Burt Sugarman and Mary Hart, William Vanech, William Villafranco, Greg Walker, and Barry Wish. I am sure I left some people out inadvertently – please forgive me.

Chris Andersen and Frederick McCarthy have been great friends and mentors to me for many years since I met them at Drexel Burnham in the late 1980s.

My friends at Money Map Press and Sure Money have been wonderful supporters of my work. Mike Ward is the greatest editor in the business. Valerie Dowdle is the force behind Sure Money and was invaluable in bringing this book to press. Elizabeth Latanishen is a constant source of energy and ideas at Sure Money. Greg Madison helps make sure that my weekly market reports get out on time and make sense. If all of Baltimore were run by Mike and his team, the city’s problems would be solved.

My teachers have been among my most important lifelong influences. Arnold Weinstein, Edna and Richard Salomon Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University, has been a lifelong friend and intellectual and moral influence along with his incredible wife Ann. Mark Taylor, Chairman of the Religious Studies Department at Columbia University, has taught me Hegel, Kierkegaard, and a thousand other things and is a wonderful friend.

I also had the privilege to study with the equivalent of the 1927 Yankees in literary studies as a graduate student at Yale University in the early 1980s: Harold Bloom, Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, Thomas Greene, J. Hillis Miller, Peter Brooks, Frederic Jameson, R.W. B. Lewis and Peter Gay. Jacques Derrida and Umberto Eco would stop by to lecture and meet with us from time-to-time as well. I sometimes pinch myself to remember how lucky I was to interact with these great minds.

And while I haven’t seen them since leaving Vanderbilt Hall, my first-year teachers at New York University School of Law had a much greater influence on me than I realized at the time: John Sexton (civil procedure), who went on to become the dean of the law school and later president of the university; the late Daniel Collins (contracts); Sylvia Law (torts); James Jacobs (criminal law); and Lawrence Sager, now Dean of the University of Texas Law School (constitutional law). Former Dean of the law school Ricky Revesz brought me back to NYU after many years and for that I am very grateful as well.

Going further back, Professor John Halperin first inspired me to want to read and write when I met him at Camp Lenox, and my high school teachers at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, New York, William Mock and Blaine Bocarde, taught me how to read and write.

Last but certainly not least, 25 years ago I had the good fortune to work at Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc. for a brief period of time. That experience was a crash course in finance followed by a second crash course in human nature and markets when my two-man firm was chosen to manage the Drexel Burnham Employee Partnerships in the 1990s. My childhood friend Jonathan Sokoloff, who has brilliantly guided the pre-eminent private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners for many years, generously helped bring me to Drexel and while I have thanked him privately many times I am pleased to do so publicly here.

I am also grateful to have had the privilege to work with Michael Milken, Lowell Milken, Richard Sandler, and Peter Ackerman managing the Drexel Burnham Employee Partnerships and on other projects. I am confident that history will show not only that Michael, Lowell, and Drexel Burnham were ill-treated by the U.S. government, but that Drexel democratized capital in ways that will be felt for generations. Michael changed the world and paid a huge price for doing so, but like many artists and revolutionaries was not sufficiently appreciated while he was accomplishing his greatest feats. History will be kinder to him than his contemporaries.