If you want to sleep at night, DO NOT read Michael Lewis’s latest expose of the world financial system, Boomerang. Lewis starts in Iceland and shows how fisherman gave up their boats to be investment banks in the go-go years of 2003-2008. But, then the bottom dropped out and Iceland’s banks were ruined. Lewis travels to Greece and discovers a culture of corruption (no one pays their taxes). Default is inevitable. And when that happens, the Euro Zone will be dragged into a vortex of debt. Lewis stops off in Ireland to discover how a country famous for its poverty became rich on real estate only to be plunged back into poverty. The only country in Europe that’s solvent is Germany. Lewis explores the factors that keep them wealthy and why they’ll stop lending to the debt-strapped countries in the European Union soon. Then, the euro will unravel.
Finally, Lewis visits California (everything happens in California first) and finds California spends more money on prisons than schools. The same financial dysfunction Lewis found in Iceland, Greece, and Ireland appears to be growing in California–and by extension, all the United States. Buy guns, ammo, and canned goods! GRADE: A
Have it on hold at our library, but there are several holds ahead of me, so I’ll be able to sleep for a few more weeks.
Current monetary situation reminds me of a line in Kate Atkinson’s latest Jackson Brodie book: There was no real money anymore, it was now just an act of collective imagination. (Rough paraphrase.)
Great quote, Deb! Wealth is just a flickering number on a computer screen. Michael Lewis paints a scary picture of the world’s financial system.
Warning taken!
My idea to cure the current money crisis, is to restart the game in the nineties and forget about what happened this century. Oh, I know the signs were there but we felt so flush.
Everyone was better of in the Nineties, Patti. The Bush tax cuts, 9/11, and the sub-prime debacle created the sinkhole we’ll be in for a decade.
We’re doomed!
According to Michael Lewis we are, Bill!
Well, we can hole up with our books and DVDs as long as we have enough canned goods and ammo, right?
You’ve got that right, Jeff! Even Michael Lewis is astonished at how quickly the world financial system fell off a cliff.