A smart and engaging book about money and the American ways with it. (Author tour)
The host of "Marketplace," NPR’s popular program about money, travels the country, Candide-like, in search of ways to
spend a relatively small sum. Finding himself with a bit of spare cash, Brancaccio, facing the same quandary as the national government, can't figure out the best way to use the unanticipated surplus. So, for more than a year, he takes a financial pilgrimage. At his first stop, the redoubtable Mall of America, he foolishly parts with some of his money for mere consumer goods. Next, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he attends classes in socially responsible investing. Having uncovered the unexpected pitfalls of entrepreneurship at a California "Be Your Own Boss" expo, he makes his way to Las Vegas to learn the differences between mutual-fund investing and gambling. Partly "to scrape the Vegas" off his heels, he next heads for a little desert town in Nevada to explore giving in the form of community service and the expenditure of social capital. Thence to Wall Street itself, where mammon and Trinity Church confront each other. Brancaccio reviews the economics of home mortgages in Levittown, New York; considers country music as a dropout way of life in a Texas school devoted to the subject; contemplates retirement to Arizona and simply stashing cash in parsimonious Seattle. Although the author is not nearly as naive as he pretends to be, his reporter's knack of soliciting advice and experience from a variety of sources works very effectively. The bottom line is a nice synthesis of America's diverse views on ready cash and what to do with it. For those who want monetary entertainment but may not crave a gnarly financial tome, Brancaccio provides some surprisingly shrewd instruction and sound financial advice, all embedded in appealing reportage. A savvy journalist, he’s as conscious of karma as of cash.
A smart and engaging book about money and the American ways with it. (Author tour)Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-86498-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
A superb examination of early feminist politics. As a case study for sexual politics in late 19th century Britain, Bland (Women's Studies/North London Polytechnic) focuses on the middle-class ``Men and Women's Club'' started in 1885 with the goal of scientifically discussing all things pertaining to the relations between men and women. Based on club minutes, personal communications, and public records, Bland's exhaustive analysis explores gender relations at a crucial time in the history of women's rights. The club members, Bland's prototypical feminists, appropriated religious, medical, and evolutionary theory to influence debates about the role of women in society. They turned public attention to the picture of the dangerous male unable to control his sexual desires, endangering women, children, and all morality. According to Bland, since women were considered morally superior to men, they were also responsible for the moral development of society. Women, in effect, were constantly battling the beast in all men, and this responsibility was their ticket to entering social and political arenas: Suffrage, for example, was necessary for women to implement their moral authority. In the final chapter, Bland ties together the extensive history of feminist thought with current debates. Most importantly, she outlines the danger of repeating repressive politics, pointing to the irony in current anti-porn debates: ``In presenting women as . . . passive objects of a monolithic lustful male sexuality (man as the `beast'), contemporary campaigners recreate the fantasy world of porn and all its misinformation about sexuality.'' Similarly the early feminists, in their ``zeal for the abolition of prostitution,'' focused on the sex workers rather than their male customers, obscuring the sexual inequality at the core of such gendered interaction. Packed with historical details, this work captures the spirit and conflicts of feminist thought. (13 illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-56584-307-X
Page Count: 432
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
An unsettling report from two economists on how new competitive forces are impacting Americans' social, business, and ethical lives. According to the Frank (Cornell Univ.; Passions Within Reason, 1988) and Cook (Duke Univ.), winner-take-all markets have two major characteristics: reward by relative rather than absolute performance and concentration of rewards in the hands of few top performers. In other words, these markets have rewarded winners disproportionately compared with runners-up, despite sometimes infinitesimal differences in outcomes (e.g., although Mary Lou Retton won her Olympic gold medal by only a slim margin, she went on to years of Wheaties endorsements, while the name of her rival is barely recalled). Although there are some benefits to these markets, they have widened the gulf between rich and poor, channeled citizens away from their natural talents and into less socially beneficial but potentially lucrative tasks, and even led to greater concentration of the best students into elite institutions. In recent years, winner-take-all imperatives have spread from professional sports and the performing arts to other sectors of the economy, including publishing, where the midlist book is being crowded out at the expense of the next blockbuster; law and investment banking, fields that lure flocks of college graduates looking for fast lucre; and even management. Frank and Cook ably explain the forces (e.g., global competition and technology) that have upped the competitive ante and raised the stakes so much that contestants will continually strive to maintain an advantage. To their credit, the authors urge changes in reward structures rather than direct regulations of career choices, though some of their proposals (e.g., loser paying in tort cases) might worsen the growing inequality that they cite as a result of winner- take-all markets. A thoughtful analysis of how today's haves and have-nots got this way.
Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1995
ISBN: 0-02-874034-3
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
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