Tossing Pebbles in the Stream

This blog is my place to sit and toss pebbles into the stream. The stream of Life relentlessly passing before us. We can affect it little. For the most part I just watch it passing and follow the flow. Occasionally, I need to comment on its passing, tossing a pebble at it to enjoy the ripple affect upon Life's surface.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

My Christmas Reading

(click on photo to enlarge)

The last of the three books my sister sent me for Christmas finally arrived. It is "The Ascent of Money : The Financial History of the World" by Niall Ferguson. It is a fascinating read if one is interested in money and how it affects our live. It is up to the minute in that it discusses the financial bubble that led up to our present economic crisis. All bubbles finally burst. Economist and others who deal with money know this; and yet, they in their greedy quest delude themselves into thinking it will not be the case this time , not yet anyway.

The book also gives some insight into the Enron bubble that burst a while back. Interestingly, Cheney and Bush had some involvement in this. This event should have been a warning for what finally happened this last time as the stripping away of government regulations allowed truly criminal behaviour to take over.

The book is about a lot more than these economic crises as it is an historical survey on how money has become so important through the ages.

This book gives more technical knowledge to compliment Margaret Atwood's Massey Lectures, "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth" which I had just finished when it arrived.

For those who are interest in understanding our present economic crisis this book is a good place start. It is not a dry read but quite a stimulating understandable one.

5 Comments:

At 7:39 p.m., KGMom said...: Hmmm--you've given me another book to add to my "want to read someday" list.
At 8:40 a.m., Gretchen said...: All the books I got for Christmas were about vampires and werewolves. What does that say about my psyche? Hmmmm....
At 3:17 p.m., amelia said...: I didn't get any books for Christmas as we don't do the gift exchange! With ten grandchildren and one great grandchild on the way, we all only buy for the youngest!!

I'm not crazy about Margaret Atwood. I have read a couple of her books but not a great fan..
At 3:23 p.m., Anonymous said...: Did I tell you about the Brendan O'Carroll books I read at Christmas. They were very good. A lighter read than what you have here.
The ecomomic climate is hitting hard. Without moaning too much we are finding things tough. One day at a time but we are both unsure of how much longer we can keep our jobs.
No doubt, without the pc you would have done even more reading!
At 12:16 p.m., Janet said...: I always suspected Bush/Cheney involvement in the Enron debacle. Bunch of crooks. We'll be paying for the last 8 years for the next 18 I suspect.
I'll have to add those books to my list. I'm always interested in the economy, but most of them bore me to tears.