- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Orion (17 April 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1857976886
- ISBN-13: 978-1857976885
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 16.4 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,844,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
The intention of this book is to entertain and explain the supposedly arcane areas of "high finance" with humour. It starts from the premise that there are only five things you can do with money: buy it, borrow it, lend or sell it, or if your have enough - sit on it. Martin Baker sees the market as a disparate group of highly-paid people with a common economic purpose and the collective intelligence of a trout. Financial markets need psychiatrists to show why and how the market moves and to explain the role of rumour and the irrelevance of statistics. He tells us what really happens in foreign exchange markets and why drugs and a German sports car are absolutely necessary to facilitate international currency exchange in which more than three times the annual gross national product of the USA changes hands every day in dealing rooms run by over-confident and under-educated young people. Stockbrokers' jargon is explained, as are banks, the explosion of credit cards and the colossal power without responsibility of fund managers. Baker shows how the search for "ethical" investment is self-deluding nonsense and how the slave labour markets of South East Asia are the object of a mini-revival. Martin Baker's thesis is that financial markets are useful but crazy.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book for guidance on investing an inheritance. It was the best warning of the dangers involved that I found.
A Fool and His Money is a magnificently clear view of the participants in the world of investing. It is also extremely cynical and sidesplittingly funny.
In particular, look for two stories;
First, Chapter 1 - The Market
Q. What is a Market Anyway? A. A Group of Smart, Highly Paid People With a Common Economic Purpose and the Collective Intelligence of a Baby Trout.
Martin Baker's answer will have you in stitches and gives James Burke a good run for his money with brilliant juxtapositions of ideas.
Second, the tale of The Culpable Table where an investment banker and her male colleague lose their heads completely during late night work on a vital merger, have wild sex, are discovered in flagrante, and what the board decides to do about it.
If a brilliantly funny friend was trying to explain the financial markets to you and warn you of the sharks that you were about to swim with, this is the book he would write. Five stars is far too few.
Martin Baker - write more books. Pretty please.
This book has disappeared from sight. My theory is that it was judged so accurate and so devastating to market confidence that all copies were secretly bought by the financial world's market makers and pulped.
You can have my copy from my cold dead hand.
A Fool and His Money is a magnificently clear view of the participants in the world of investing. It is also extremely cynical and sidesplittingly funny.
In particular, look for two stories;
First, Chapter 1 - The Market
Q. What is a Market Anyway? A. A Group of Smart, Highly Paid People With a Common Economic Purpose and the Collective Intelligence of a Baby Trout.
Martin Baker's answer will have you in stitches and gives James Burke a good run for his money with brilliant juxtapositions of ideas.
Second, the tale of The Culpable Table where an investment banker and her male colleague lose their heads completely during late night work on a vital merger, have wild sex, are discovered in flagrante, and what the board decides to do about it.
If a brilliantly funny friend was trying to explain the financial markets to you and warn you of the sharks that you were about to swim with, this is the book he would write. Five stars is far too few.
Martin Baker - write more books. Pretty please.
This book has disappeared from sight. My theory is that it was judged so accurate and so devastating to market confidence that all copies were secretly bought by the financial world's market makers and pulped.
You can have my copy from my cold dead hand.
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