Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises


Timothy F. Geithner - 2014
    Geithner helped the United States navigate the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, from boom to bust to rescue to recovery. In a candid, riveting, and historically illuminating memoir, he takes readers behind the scenes of the crisis, explaining the hard choices and politically unpalatable decisions he made to repair a broken financial system and prevent the collapse of the Main Street economy. This is the inside story of how a small group of policy makers—in a thick fog of uncertainty, with unimaginably high stakes—helped avoid a second depression but lost the American people doing it. Stress Test is also a valuable guide to how governments can better manage financial crises, because this one won’t be the last.Stress Test reveals a side of Secretary Geithner the public has never seen, starting with his childhood as an American abroad. He recounts his early days as a young Treasury official helping to fight the international financial crises of the 1990s, then describes what he saw, what he did, and what he missed at the New York Fed before the Wall Street boom went bust. He takes readers inside the room as the crisis began, intensified, and burned out of control, discussing the most controversial episodes of his tenures at the New York Fed and the Treasury, including the rescue of Bear Stearns; the harrowing weekend when Lehman Brothers failed; the searing crucible of the AIG rescue as well as the furor over the firm’s lavish bonuses; the battles inside the Obama administration over his widely criticized but ultimately successful plan to end the crisis; and the bracing fight for the most sweeping financial reforms in more than seventy years. Secretary Geithner also describes the aftershocks of the crisis, including the administration’s efforts to address high unemployment, a series of brutal political battles over deficits and debt, and the drama over Europe’s repeated flirtations with the economic abyss. Secretary Geithner is not a politician, but he has things to say about politics—the silliness, the nastiness, the toll it took on his family. But in the end, Stress Test is a hopeful story about public service. In this revealing memoir, Tim Geithner explains how America withstood the ultimate stress test of its political and financial systems.

The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives


Jesse Eisinger - 2017
    The Chickenshit Club—an inside reference to prosecutors too scared of failure and too daunted by legal impediments to do their jobs—explains why in “an absorbing financial history, a monumental work of journalism…a first-rate study of the federal bureaucracy” (Bloomberg Businessweek).Jesse Eisigner begins the story in the 1970s, when the government pioneered the notion that top corporate executives, not just seedy crooks, could commit heinous crimes and go to prison. He brings us to trading desks on Wall Street, to corporate boardrooms and the offices of prosecutors and FBI agents. These revealing looks provide context for the evolution of the Justice Department’s approach to pursuing corporate criminals through the early 2000s and into the Justice Department’s approach to pursuing corporate criminals through the early 2000s and into the Justice Department of today, including the prosecutorial fiascos, corporate lobbying, trial losses, and culture shifts that have stripped the government of the will and ability to prosecute top corporate executives.“Brave and elegant….a fearless reporter…Eisinger’s important and profound book takes no prisoners (The Washington Post). Exposing one of the most important scandals of our time, The Chickenshit Club provides a clear, detailed explanation as to how our Justice Department has come to avoid, bungle, and mismanage the fight to bring these alleged criminals to justice. “This book is a wakeup call…a chilling read, and a needed one” (NPR.org).

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly


Carmen M. Reinhart - 2009
    Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different"--claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes--from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much--or how little--we have learned. Using clear, sharp analysis and comprehensive data, Reinhart and Rogoff document that financial fallouts occur in clusters and strike with surprisingly consistent frequency, duration, and ferocity. They examine the patterns of currency crashes, high and hyperinflation, and government defaults on international and domestic debts--as well as the cycles in housing and equity prices, capital flows, unemployment, and government revenues around these crises. While countries do weather their financial storms, Reinhart and Rogoff prove that short memories make it all too easy for crises to recur. An important book that will affect policy discussions for a long time to come, This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.

Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners


Larry Harris - 2002
    Readers will learn about investors, brokers, dealers, arbitrageurs, retail traders, day traders, rogue traders, and gamblers; exchanges, boards of trade, dealer networks, ECNs (electronic communications networks), crossing markets, and pink sheets. Also covered in this text are single price auctions, open outcry auctions, and brokered markets limit orders, market orders, and stop orders. Finally, the author covers the areas of program trades, blocktrades, and short trades, price priority, time precedence, public order precedence, and display precedence, insider trading, scalping, and bluffing, and investing, speculating, and gambling.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money


John Maynard Keynes - 1935
    In his most important work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), Keynes critiqued the laissez-faire policies of his day, particularly the proposition that a normally functioning market economy would bring full employment. Keynes's forward-looking work transformed economics from merely a descriptive and analytic discipline into one that is policy oriented. For Keynes, enlightened government intervention in a nation's economic life was essential to curbing what he saw as the inherent inequalities and instabilities of unregulated capitalism.

Zombie Economics: A Guide to Personal Finance


Lisa Desjardins - 2011
    It's compelling, it's straightforward, and it can change your life. Zombie Economics is for anyone in the midst of financial uncertainty, a place where carelessness and timidity will cost you. From the creeping spread of unpaid bills to the lumbering advance of creditors, Zombie Economics confronts the biggest threats to your personal economy, takes aim, and then takes them down. Specific chapters include: A Basement Full of Ammo Saving yourself by saving money They'll Eat the Fat Ones First Using fitness as a financial asset Shooting Dad in the Head Ending your relationships with the financially infected With simple, easy-to-use techniques for identifying-and eliminating-your financial weak spots, Zombie Economics turns victims into survivors. Watch a Video"

Retire Before Mom and Dad


Rob Berger - 2019
    A life free from financial stress. A life full of what matters most to you.In Retire Before Mom and Dad, you’ll learn how to unlock the superpower inside of you that is capable of transforming almost any income into lasting financial freedom. And, you’ll discover that it’s not about scrimping and sacrificing to get there.Forbes Deputy Editor and Personal Finance Expert, Rob Berger, will teach you:The 5 money myths that are keeping you from a life of financial freedomThe step-by-step plan you need to save money without giving up your favorite hobbiesHow the rule of 857 turns pocket change into thousands in savingsThe superpower you have to become wealthy on just about any incomeHow to achieve financial freedom with AutoPilot investingThe 7 Levels of Financial Freedom and what it takes to reach each levelChange the way you see money. Instead of trying to buy happiness that is always one more purchase away, your money will buy your freedom. What you do with that freedom is up to you.You only have one life to live. Make it count.

Accounts Demystified: The Astonishingly Simple Guide to Accounting


Anthony Rice - 2003
    Written in a way that even the financial novice can easily absorb, this is a new edition of the bestselling guide to understanding and using business accounts and accounting principles.

Negotiating Your Salary: How To Make $1,000 A Minute


Jack Chapman - 1996
     Simple preparation can double your salary. Who should mention a dollar amount first? Talking about salary incorrectlly can knock you out before you even get a chance to interview. What is your best first answer to an offer? One phone call or one web page can tell you what salary to ask for.Specific phrases to memorize that will boost your offer 10% or more. How you can get your employer to want to give you a raise.

Payback Time!


Phil Town - 2010
      Too often, people see long-term investing as “mutual fund contributing” – otherwise known as “long-term hoping.”  But the sad truth is that mutual fund investors are, to a stunning degree, pinning their hopes on an institution that is hopeless.  It turns out that only 4% of fund managers consistently beat the S&P 500 index over the long term, which means that 96% of fund investors see a smaller return on their nest egg than a chimpanzee who simply buys stocks in the 500 biggest companies in America and watches what happens.   But it’s worse than that.  The net effect of hitching your wagon to mutual funds is that over a lifetime they’ll fritter away as much 60% of your nest egg in fees.  Once you understand how funds engineer this, you’ll rush  to invest on your own.  Payback Time’s risk-free approach is called “stockpiling” and it’s how billionaires get rich in bad markets.  It’s a set of rules for investing (not trading but investing) in the right businesses at the right time -- rules that will ensure you make the big money. From the Hardcover edition.

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities


John Cassidy - 2009
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.

This Book Will Save You Time


Misir Mahmudov - 2020
    Everything else can be made, bought or created. Our life is made up of around 600,000 hours and every second is of infinite value. We live in an attention economy where corporations are fighting for our time with the goal of monetizing our every second. The money we use loses value and devalues our time through inflation. When we work, we are exchanging our limited time for money whose quantity increases every year. It hasn’t always been this way. People used gold as money for a reason; it was also a limited resource. Now, what does the future hold?Valuing your time is the first step to improving your life. Knowing that your time is the only limited resource makes you more selective about the things you do, the people you spend your time with and the assets you choose to store your wealth in. Once you learn to appreciate your time, you will get busy doing the things you love and start making better financial choices.

2030: How Today's Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything


Mauro F. Guillén - 2020
    Babies were plentiful, workers outnumbered retirees, and people aspiring towards the middle class yearned to own homes and cars. Companies didn't need to see any further than Europe and the United States to do well. Printed money was legal tender for all debts, public and private. We grew up learning how to "play the game," and we expected the rules to remain the same as we took our first job, started a family, saw our children grow up, and went into retirement with our finances secure.That world—and those rules—are over.By 2030, a new reality will take hold, and before you know it:- There will be more grandparents than grandchildren- The middle-class in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will outnumber the US and Europe combined- The global economy will be driven by the non-Western consumer for the first time in modern history- There will be more global wealth owned by women than men- There will be more robots than workers- There will be more computers than human brains- There will be more currencies than countriesAll these trends, currently underway, will converge in the year 2030 and change everything you know about culture, the economy, and the world.According to Mauro F. Guillen, the only way to truly understand the global transformations underway—and their impacts—is to think laterally. That is, using “peripheral vision,” or approaching problems creatively and from unorthodox points of view. Rather than focusing on a single trend—climate-change or the rise of illiberal regimes, for example—Guillen encourages us to consider the dynamic inter-play between a range of forces that will converge on a single tipping point—2030—that will be, for better or worse, the point of no return.2030 is both a remarkable guide to the coming changes and an exercise in the power of “lateral thinking,” thereby revolutionizing the way you think about cataclysmic change and its consequences.

Your Money Map: A Proven 7-Step Guide to True Financial Freedom


Howard Dayton - 2006
    Based on the phenomenally popular Money Map concept created by Crown Ministries, this is a simple roadmap for organizing one’s finances through life. Howard Dayton’s expertise and financial experience come to light as he guides readers on a journey toward Biblically based, true financial freedom…

A Man for All Markets


Edward O. Thorp - 2016
    Thorp invented card counting, proving the seemingly impossible: that you could beat the dealer at the blackjack table. As a result he launched a gambling renaissance. His remarkable success--and mathematically unassailable method--caused such an uproar that casinos altered the rules of the game to thwart him and the legions he inspired. They barred him from their premises, even put his life in jeopardy. Nonetheless, gambling was forever changed.Thereafter, Thorp shifted his sights to "the biggest casino in the world" Wall Street. Devising and then deploying mathematical formulas to beat the market, Thorp ushered in the era of quantitative finance we live in today. Along the way, the so-called godfather of the quants played bridge with Warren Buffett, crossed swords with a young Rudy Giuliani, detected the Bernie Madoff scheme, and, to beat the game of roulette, invented, with Claude Shannon, the world's first wearable computer.Here, for the first time, Thorp tells the story of what he did, how he did it, his passions and motivations, and the curiosity that has always driven him to disregard conventional wisdom and devise game-changing solutions to seemingly insoluble problems. An intellectual thrill ride, replete with practical wisdom that can guide us all in uncertain financial waters, A Man for All Markets is an instant classic--a book that challenges its readers to think logically about a seemingly irrational world.Praise for A Man for All Markets"In A Man for All Markets, [Thorp] delightfully recounts his progress (if that is the word) from college teacher to gambler to hedge-fund manager. Along the way we learn important lessons about the functioning of markets and the logic of investment."--The Wall Street Journal"[Thorp] gives a biological summation (think Richard Feynman's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!) of his quest to prove the aphorism 'the house always wins' is flawed. . . . Illuminating for the mathematically inclined, and cautionary for would-be gamblers and day traders"-- Library Journal