Book Recommendation
I am very happy now to do something I have never done before. It’s book recommendation time!
This week has been very busy, with a few projects and a final. During my downtime, however, I was able to finish a finance book that my father recommended me (actually, he bought me a copy of it) titled How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, by Peter Schiff and Andrew Schiff. Now, as a short disclosure, I have spent most of my life relatively uninterested in the economics world, but after running into some debt issues, getting out of debt issues, and hearing what some generally interesting people have to say, the value of fiscal understanding is becoming apparent to me. So for those of you who may be lost by my normal project plans, this post will take a break from the regular engineering stuff.
The book is written as a parable involving islanders and fish, representing the United States and money. Initially, the story involves the industrial development of an island, where inhabitants go from fishing daily for survival to taking risks and reaping rewards which allows the islanders to develop new leisure activities. As the economy of the island becomes more complex and civil projects are created, political powers are assigned to control a portion of the islanders money for the good of everyone. However, greed and pride negatively influence the balance of money control and push the island into great debt without long term plan for healing. While the author’s bias is apparent early, there are good points to take away from a story that is simple enough for a modern teenager to understand, including the balance of loans and savings and the relation of risk and reward.
As a personal point, I have made a personal goal to maximize my financial situation before my wedding, and while the personal finance books I’ve read have provided assistance more catered to my specific situation, I find that this book provides a solid background of the study of money flow that will allow me to make more careful financial decisions for the future.
And there you have it; How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes is a quick, simple read, with strong fiscal knowledge.
Michaelstaudenmeir's Blog 