Mobs, Messiahs & Markets: Book Review
The publishers of Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics
I’m glad they did. It was an excellent read, similar in some respects to one of my all-time favorite investment books: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
The book talks about people who were determined to make the world a better place by making it conform to their delusions. People like Hitler for example! The authors also talk about how crowd think leads to wars and how wars are futile and never worth the cost. There’s also a complete chapter making fun of Thomas Freedman and his banal book “The World is Flat”. I never liked that book and apparently neither did the authors. There’s also a full chapter devoted to Alan Greenspan which was particularly eye-opening. It describes how his cowardice was responsible for the mess we’re in today. He exchanged his ideals when he went to Washington for fame and fortune. In his younger years, Greenspan apparently once said “In absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from the confiscation of inflation…The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for owners of wealth to protect themselves“. But once in Washington, he turned on the credit spigot and inflated the money supply 10-fold!
The end of the book explains how you should ignore the popular beliefs and learn to think for yourselves if you want to invest profitably. They also caution against buy and hold investing. There is no such thing as buy-and-hold, you are either long or short an investment. If you are in cash, then you are long currency and short stocks and vice-versa. In the current economic climate they encourage going long Gold and short the US Dollar, which they think will fail like all fiat currencies before it (there’s actually a pretty extensive list of defunct currencies on page 256). As they say, gold isn’t a typical investment but its more of a store of value. Since the value of the dollar is about to be destroyed, it makes sense to load up on gold.
Overall, it was a very interesting read. The first half was a little excessive in its mockery of public figures and events. But the later half more than made up for this by explaining how the government and various financial institutions swindle the common public. I plan on re-reading it for the sheer entertainment value alone!
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
-
Buffett Finally Admits the Dollar is Doomed! Finally Warren Buffett said what I've been harping on about for two years. In his NYT op-ed piece titled "The Greenback Effect" he admited that the government is setting us up for massive inflation and destruction of the US Dollar. This fiscal year, though, the deficit will rise to about...... - What Is Jim Rogers Buying Now? A couple of days ago, legendary investor, commodity bull and one-time partner of George Soros, Jim Rogers, was interviewed by Betty Liu of Bloomberg's Singapore office. It seems that Jim Rogers is also of the opinion that Fannie Mae is going to lose a lot of money along with other......
- Faber And Einhorn on Inflation and Gold In the previous post on Peter Schiff, some of the commenters suggested diversifying out of the US dollar and economy and instead investing in natural resource rich countries like Canada and Australia. One person who supports this theory is Marc Faber. He thinks there's a strong possibility that the US......
Related Websites
- Beach Reading on Personal Finance I will be on vacation next week. Not at the beach exactly but at the lake with family. I like to get a little recreational reading in when I am on vacation, taking me away briefly from the legal and technical reading that fills my workdays. I guess you could......
- Real Estate Investments - Good Idea or Bad Idea? Right now, if there was a market that had bad news written all over it, it would be real estate. The housing crisis has made investors jumpy, the economy appears to be tanking and home values are plummeting across the country. Would you believe that this is actually a good......
- Review of Buying a Great Boat by Athur Edmunds When the author of a book is an ex naval architect, you're pretty much guaranteed that you're getting some first class knowledge when it comes to selecting the boat that is right for you. This book did not disappoint in any major way and is truly helpful for those buying......
[All content is copyright of Living Off Dividends & Passive Income]
Leave a Reply