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Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2009 > June > 10 > Entry
The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families…
When Peter Gosselin published HIGH WIRE - The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families (Basic Books) one year ago he was acting as a canary in the coal mine, he issued a warning that wild volatility in the financial markets could have a devastating impact upon American families.
One year later the paperback version is being published and his words of warning have proved to be horribly precise. The chickens have come home to roost. Trillions of dollars have vanished just like that. Poof.
Gosselin, a former national economics reporter for the LA Times dissected the threats posed by an adherence to free market principles which swiftly devolved into a textbook lesson in the principles of free fall. His dissection now reads more like an autopsy report.
We were trying to live the ideals of our American Dreams. We believed that our financial security was assured if we did the right things; got decent educations, saved, bought insurance, worked hard, stayed loyal to our employers, and lived conservatively; that this approach would shield us from want and fear. It wasn’t so.
Gosselin makes the case that our devotion to the free market led us to worship at the altar of excess - that our politicians were blind - that our ethics proved flawed.
The author suggests that we must begin to head in a different direction. Read it and weep.
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: booms and busts
Comments
By TRS
June 11, 2009 11:20 AM | Link to this
I have read excerpts but not the entire book. I think I will pick it up. On the surface, I don’t disagree with his premise. It seems we are dealing with the age old debate of balancing personal opportunity and responsibility vs our mutual obligation to society. Put another way do we want more freedom and limited government as the founders envisioned or more government and less freedom as the progressives of the early 1900s desired. From what I understand Gosselin acknowledges that the last 25 years have led to unprecedented economic growth and opportunity; however, it has been carried to an excess. Thats pretty obvious; yet, when considering Americans and debt, can we really say we have lived conservatively? If we wanted it or our kids wanted it, we pretty much bought it. We weren’t forced to but we were easily persuaded. Having been raise on a farm, I learned early on that there were no guarantees. You could do all the right things but if the weather didn’t cooperate, crops wouldn’t grow. In our sense of entitlement, it seems there is an expectation of guarantee from want and fear as Gosselin puts it. I see no where in history where that has occurred or nor anywhere in our constitution that it is promised. Certainly we should provide a safety net but how much of life’s risk do we seek to eliminate thru government before it becomes “king”?By Alice
June 10, 2009 3:46 PM | Link to this
“We believed that our financial security was assured if we did the right things; got decent educations, saved, bought insurance, worked hard, stayed loyal to our employers, and lived conservatively…” The problem with this approach is that we blindly assume that the employers are doing the same.