Re: the future long term financial apocalypse of the USA

On Fri, 10 May 2024 18:50:29 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

On 5/10/2024 6:14 PM, William Hyde wrote:

Lynn McGuire wrote:

For those who are interested in the future long term financial
apocalypse of the USA, I recommend reading “The Mandibles: A Family,
2029-2047” by Lionel Shriver:
>
https://www.amazon.com/Mandibles-Family-2029-2047-Lionel-Shriver/dp/006232828X/
>
For those who do not like Lionel Shriver, I recommend “Distraction" by
Bruce Sterling:
    https://www.amazon.com/Distraction-Bruce-Sterling/dp/1857989287/
>
For those who just want a short term financial apocalypse of the USA,
I recommend “Buck Out” by Ken Benton:
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1514666979/

 
While for a look at the real financial disasters of  the past few
decades, as opposed  to the imagined, I recommend some books by Micheal
Lewis
 
"Liar's Poker" - about his brief career as a bond trader (far more
customer-hostile than stock trading) and also the beginnings of two
ideas that didn't need to be disasters but were, junk bonds and mortgage
backed securities.  You will learn why "Equities in Dallas" is an insult.
 
"The Big Short" - about the unscrupulous, foolish, and criminal who
caused the 2009 crisis, and those who saw it coming and profited by it,
as well as those who saw it coming and still managed to lose money. Your
money, if you are an American taxpayer.
 
Also why the bond rating agencies are staffed by people you wouldn't
want anywhere near your money.
 
"Flash boys"  How the American markets were restructured to make the
process even more skewed to big money, to enable what can only be called
stealing.  And about those who opposed this.
 
Two other books:
 
"A random walk down wall street" by Burton Malkiel.
 
If time travel ever takes you to the 60s, don't invest in anything that
ends in "tronics" unless your future knowledge tells you that this one
did well.  Malkiel explains why.  From the person who came up with the
idea of index funds.
 
"Bull" by Maggie Mahar.  While I don't endorse "Dow Theory", this book
slaughters a number of sacred cows, and points out how the financial
press got almost everything about the 1990s boom wrong, and tells us
what really happened to some oft-derided characters who did (if time
travel  takes you to that era, consider investing in anyone Jim Cramer
dismisses).
 
 
William Hyde

>
I saw The Big Short movie.  Pretty good.

I saw it also. I probably wouldn't had I realized it was some sort of
documentary, but it held my attention and did explain things a bit.

I liked /Up in the Air/ better. But, of course, that covers the
aftermath of the financial idiocy.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"