Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing
Ratings13
Average rating3.8
If you enjoyed the “Planet Money” podcast, this book will be right up your alley. It's got the same breezy style, going off on tangents that turn out not to be so tangential after all. It's a quick read, but the “Notes” at the back look to be rich source of further reading material.
“The essence of finance is time travel.” (quoting Matt Levine)
Counterfeiting money is as old as money :-)
I gave it three stars because so of the ideas were truly new to me. HOWEVER, He routinely made sweeping and unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of a capitalist system, even as citing counter examples. This drove me crazy.
If you pick this book up, read it with a VERY critical eye.
Okay this was amazing. I listened to the audiobook version and had to pause it frequently to think and re-think what was said, to let it sink in when one of the concepts I knew scientifically wasn't sacrosanct but didn't fully “grok” was challenged and explained by the author. In college, I focused very little on monetary theory, but I always found it fascinating in its own right, a collective illusion that is so strong, entire societies would rather perish clinging on to their idea of it than alter their opinion. In that sense, it is among the most human of inventions, and like all human inventions, we should perpetually challenge it and improve on it for the betterment of mankind.