A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class

by Joe Nocera

Now with a new introduction describing the fallout of America’s consumer credit boom, 1994’s wildly acclaimed bestseller A Piece of the Action tells the story of how millions of middle class Americans went from being savers to borrowers and investors through the invention of credit cards, mutual funds, and IRAs—resulting in profound societal change.Tracing the invention of products like credit cards, mutual funds, and individual retirement accounts, A Piece of the Action tells the stories of a handful of men who transformed the way Americans think about and deal with their money: men like Charles Merrill, the flamboyant founder of Merrill Lynch; Peter Lynch, the investing guru who managed the Fidelity Magellan Fund; and Charles Schwab, who transformed his eponymous company into the nation’s biggest discount broker. These innovations produced a genuine revolution—the democratization of money—in which the middle class became financial players.



Author Joe Nocera’s 2013 introduction describes where this revolution took those who embraced it, that is, practically all of us. We have gone into debt, made dicey investments, and lived through many bursting bubbles. We used the financial tools we now had at our disposal to act on bets and dares we didn’t yet understand. We bet on the Internet, borrowed on our homes, and compromised our retirements in pursuit of the American dream.



A Piece of the Action is an important piece of financial and social history, and Nocera’s 2013 critique of the uses of the revolution is a powerful warning and admonition to understand what is at stake before we act.

Genres: Economics, Business, Finance, History, Nonfiction, Money, American

464 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

Joseph Nocera is an American business journalist and author. He has been a columnist for The New York Times since April 2005. Nocera is also a business commentator for NPR’s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon.

Prior to joining The New York Times, Nocera worked at Fortune from 1995 to 2005, in a variety of positions, finally as editorial director. Nocera was the "Profit Motive" columnist at GQ from 1990 to 1995, and also wrote the same column for Esquire from 1988 to 1990.

In the 1980s, Nocera was an editor at Newsweek; an executive editor of New England Monthly; and a senior editor at Texas Monthly. In the late 1970s he was also an editor at The Washington Monthly.

Nocera earned a B.S. in journalism from Boston University in 1974, and now lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Pat Herndon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully written book that I am reading nearly 20 years after it was written. It is timely and explains so much of where we are today...with our modern discussion of the Glass-Steagall Act and this book's works cited including a piece by Elizabeth Warren. I recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand financial markets.

[Gabriel Pinkus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best history of the credit card in the US that I have encountered.

[Preston McKenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a survey of the changes in personal finance from 1958 (the introduction of mainstream credit cards) through the early 1990's (middle class owns mutual funds and multiple credit cards). I enjoyed the stories of the visionaries and characters that drove this revolution, and appreciate my lucky timing to arrive just after the change. However, the author missed the chance to analyze the broader impact and mostly focused on the origin and evolution stories of a handful of large firms (Bank of America, Visa, Merrill Lynch, Fidelity, Charles Schwab).

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fascinating book tells the story of the "Money Revolution"--the invention of mutual funds, credit cards, money market funds, and discount brokerages--and how it changed America.

Joe Nocera carefully traces the developments of each new technology, while in the meantime creating almost mini-biographies of the key players, such as Dee Hock of Visa, Charles Schwab of Charles Schwab, Don Regan of Merrill Lynch, and Ned Johnson and Peter Lynch of Fidelity. This book details how so many financial products we take for granted were created, and what life was like before them.

If you are student of political science, this book will also fascinate you. Because the "money revolution" is a story of skirting regulation, finding loopholes, and lobbying legislators and bank regulators from New York to Salt Lake. Personally, for me, I studied Don Regan's tenure as White House Chief of Staff and his failures there in my advanced poli sci classes--so understanding the backstory for why he was a financial titan was enlightening.

At the same time, the publication date of Nocera's book is also a limitation. He almost completely misses two changes which have taken the "money revolution" even further--ETFs and index funds. In this book, Jack Bogle is the cranky critic of the wise Ned Johnson of Fidelity who gives the people the mutual funds they want. Of course, the story is different today--Vanguard now dwarfs Fidelity in assets under management and you can trade your ETF from any issuer in any account at any time in the trading day.

[Monzenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been a while since I've read a six-star book. This one hits a lot of my sweet spots: it's a finance book, it's financial history, it delves in a category that I've never thought of before (the rise of middle class finance), and it rotates around an interesting cast of characters. More important, though, is its strong narrative. Not only does each chapter read well, but it flows from one chapter to the next. Add the cherry on top: the end loops back to the beginning (not directly, mind, just in its theme). I don't think it's a spoiler if I say that I liked the "and yet" final section quite a lot. The tone was both educational and easygoing, authoritative and entertaining. My copy was 400 pages long but honestly I wouldn't have minded it if it had an additional 200 pages; the worldbuilding was that good.

[Leo Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderfully informative book on the personal finance revolution in America during the 60's through late 80's. The stories behind moneymarket funds, mutual funds, discount brokerages and credit cards were well researched and pulled in several different viewpoints. The mutual funds were particularly interesting to me because my dad got into that industry when I was a young and allowed me to appreciate that boom from a different perspective. I rate it a 4.5 on content, 3.5 on writing.

[Ashby Hilsman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book!

This should be required reading for anyone interested in the social and economic history of the past 50 years. Barry Ritholtz recommended it in his blog The Big Picture at ritholtz.com. Barry was spot on!

[Brendan Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an easy read that covers the rise of the money revolution over a span of about 35 years.
The book covers an array of interesting stories and touches on themes such as the rise of credit cards and the history of the mutual fund industry.

[Alan Seigerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent review of the growth of personal finance industry as it embraced the middle class and compelling read of the innovators that made it happen.

[Scott Loftesness · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book about the evolution of consumer finance in the USA - including some fascinating history on Visa and Dee Hock.

[Phuong Thanh · Rating 5 out of 5]

His column on Bloomberg is also a pleasure to read.

[PRATHMESH Chandravadan · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent

[Carlton Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The market climbs a wall of worry."

[K1c · Rating 4 out of 5]

Riveting, informative narrative of how the sector involved, with an ending that is too triumphalist

[Red Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nocera explains how the middle class was given access to easier investing and the capital markets, and how they benefited.

The creation of the money market fund (and later check writing out of that fund) drew small savers in and made them investors.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tells the history of middle class personal finance in America. At some point, investing was only for rich people -- Middle America put their money in a savings account in a bank. Slowly, laws and attitudes changed, and people started to take advantage of other opportunities: discount stock houses, credit cards, money market accounts, and on and on.

Most of the history is pretty interesting, and the book does a great job of telling it -- for the most part. Unfortunately, the book ends up focusing on some financial superstars: such as Merrill and Lynch and Peter Schwab. Some of the people that the book describes are truly central to changing the way people viewed and used financial houses, such as Dee Hock with the creation of Visa. The big-name mutual fund managers, unfortunately, get at least as much writing (and often much more) in this book, even though they had much less direct impact on changing personal finance for most people.

If this book cut out gratuitous biographies of fringe players, and expanded the detail of people that actually played central roles in this book's subject, I would definitely have given it another star.

[JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tightly woven across this century, Nocera details the birth and evolution of credit cards, mutual funds, discount brokerage, and the modern American financial culture. Credit cards began with a drop of 60,000 on Fresno, California, by Bank of America, whose eventual industry group evolved into Visa under the leadership of Dee Hock. Discount brokerage was made possible by "Mayday," 1 May 1975, when fixed commission laws were phased out. Similar tales regarding the beginning of mutual funds wrap-up with the story of Peter Lynch and other fund manager celebrities. It's a good overview of the developmental shifts that brought the supermarket concept to the market for middle-class capital and of the progression from a Depression mentality to an inflation mentality to a credit mentality, and perhaps finally to an information mentality.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-researched book. Anyone interested in the evolution over the last 100 years of financial products for the masses from stock market investing, credit cards, banking deregulation, mutual funds, etc would like this book. Learned a lot of interesting things. Even though it's out of date (1994 publishing) it's still good for the historical stuff and also it's somewhat interesting to get the out of date perspective without the knowledge of all the mayhem that happened since that time. only negative keeping from 5 stars is that it's probably longer than necessary, going into detail about office politics that could have been slimmed a bit to make for a faster read.

[Bimbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting and easy to understand account of the rapid development of financial services in the past decades. The subject is worth a long look back and a lot of thinking. Although written in the heyday of democratisation of the financial industry Nocera managed to remain rather restrained in the praise of it all. Thus the book remains a very good and informative read after so many years that were it a human being it could legally drive a car by now. Nonetheless, the reprinted edition of 2013 comes with Nocera's foreword reflecting the post 2008 climate which is also a worthy addition to it.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was riveting and opened a whole new world of understanding for me on how the financial landscape has changed in America over time. An invaluable resource for anyone wanting a complete understanding of how we got in the financial mess we're in today. I would love to read an updated version that covers the world of finance through 2009.

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, detailing the opening of the financial sector, through credit cards and consumer debt, to the American middle class. Highly readable, Nocera injects character and personality to what could have been a dry financial history, bringing the people and industry to life. Recommended.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

20 years later, this book is still a must-read. An insightful history of modern financial services, it traces the history of financial products for the middle class from credit cards in the 1950s to mutual funds in the 1980s.

[Drew Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good account of the development of the financial services. Could be understood by both a lay person and someone who works in finance.

[Eli Mernit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful history of financial products created for middle class Americans in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s