Perhaps there is one silver lining on the Wall Street financial crisis. According to a recent Associated Press story, books about America’s big money troubles are making the big bucks.
Nancy Sheppard, the vice president of marketing at Viking publishing told AP: ”When the world seems to be ending, people still turn to books for help.â€
Viking published the Amazon best selling Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism by Kevin Phillips. Like the title implies, the book discusses a new phenomenon called “bad money†in which the U.S. is dependent on the global economy and makes a series of risk miscalculations with financial products. Does this sound familiar?
Another Amazon best-seller is Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Her book talks about the economic policy decisions that politicians were able to pull off because of natural disasters, wars or other catastrophic events. Hmmm….
I also took a quick glance at BusinessWeek.com’s recent book review list. At the moment, there were several titles that directly relate to our financial fiasco.
Would you like to know more on the international financial problems, check out:
The Subprime Solution: How Today’s Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It by Robert J. Shiller
Or are you seeking more information on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the U.S. mortgage problems? Take a look at:
Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis by Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla
Or perhaps, you are interested in how the macroeconomic picture is affecting the little guy? Or how Wall Street has affected Main Street? You might want to read either of these next two books:
High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families By Peter Gosselin
The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker By Steven Greenhouse
Although I am not endorsing any of these books, I must say that hindsight is always 20/20. Meaning, where were all of these books before the financial crisis occurred (maybe being written)? So, even when you think people aren’t making money or the economy is shot, there’s always someone that’s figured out how to make a buck. And in this case, you can read all about it.
Tags: amazon, businessweek, capitalism, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, kevin phillips, mathew padilla, money, mortgage, naomi klein, paul muolo, peter goseelin, robert shiller, steven greenhouse, wall street
As the author of one of the books you mention, The Big Squeeze, I am totally surprised that you would write, “Where were all of these books before the financial crisis occurred (maybe being written)?”
Where were you when my book came out on April 15, long before the financial crisis occurred. I wrote my book about the many, many ways that the nation’s are workers are being squeezed — long before the financial crisis — largely because I thought policymakers and the nation’s news media and bloggers were ignoring this serious squeeze. I turned in my final manuscript in September 2007, before people were talking about a possible ression and many months before the financial crisis. In The Big Squeeze, I discuss many trends that had long been ignored until recently — stagnating wages, declining household income, workers being pressed to work harder and faster, the loss of one fifth of the nation’s manufacturing jobs. You’re way off base to suggest that I was a johnny-come-lately on the nation’s — and its workers — economic trouble. If anything, I was ahead of the curve.
Steven, no one is saying that you or any of the other authors are Johnny Come lately’s. Rather, that the attention on all of these financial books by the public as well as publishers would have been great before now. It is no fault of your own that you saw the trends ahead of time. I wish, like other Americans, that someone could have raised the profile of your book and others to solve this problem before it happened. And besides, we know this financial mess started long before April 15th.