To me, this is the book Das Satyajit could have written instead of the "Age of Stagnation." In fact, this author quotes Das multiple times to great effect. But, whereas Das decided to turn his book on debt on finance into a crusade against climate change deniers, Price offers practical advice and lots of cynical humor. Rather than describing his wit, here are some examples: - "The financial services industry is unique. No other industry compensates its employees so generously while delivering such modest tangible value to its customers or society at large." - "In the run-up to the Global Financial Crisis, accident-prone bankers were only doing what they always do: gambling (badly, it transpired) with other's peoples money." -"There are, after all, only three ways in which money can be spent. You can spend your own money on yourself. You can spend your own money on other people. Or you can spend other people's money." -"Economics is an overconfident discipline with delusions of scientific rigour where none really exists."
He also points out the difficult future banks face as millennials use other fintech for their financial needs. I'm not sure if I agree with him or not. I still trust banks more than I trust most apps. He then moves onto a critique of central banks that I found brilliant. He compares them to central planning which occurred under communist regimes (which failed). He also recalled history to point out that price controls never work - even under pain of death (which Venezuelan leaders should have read...). He then tears in the field of academic economists - really good and funny. :)
He then discusses how people should be investing in light of the current environment (zero percent interest rates). Primarily, he recommends value investing. He also talks about holding cash and even gold as a store of value (not as an investment). He briefly gets into a description of trend-following as potentially the most effective investment strategy.
Anyway, I thought this was a great book with solid advice. Don't overpay big companies to manage your money. They are more focused on gathering assets than managing assets.
In Investing Through the Looking Glass, Price paints a pretty negative view of the status of our modern financial system. He has healthy critiques of the big banks, the govt. institutions, and the economists/politicians who run them. Overall the book is informative as it discuss the macroeconomic challenges of the last 20 years and the impact they are likely to have on investments and the monetary system in the future. He concludes by identifying value investing as the most likely candidate for allowing regular investors to have a chance of making something with their investments relative to savings, bonds, or standard indexing. I found the book informative and interesting. There were a few issues with some of how Price delivered some of the data, including chart 3 in chapter 6 that didn't include the full data which leads me to question his argument for that particular point. I would like to see the full data and if having the full data supports or detracts from his argument. For the amount of material he covers, Price writes a solid book that is concise, informative, and a good bit pessimistic about the state of affairs of the global financial system.
Explains clearly the predicament that savers and investors now face. But what to do about it? Buy gold - ok. Beyond that it all seems very difficult. However, well written and definitely worth reading.
An entertaining analysis of state of modern financial markets and how we arrived in this mess - with some pragmatic portfolio design considerations thrown in to boot.
This book will give you an insight as to why you should be investing. The obvious answer is to beat the interest rates and the constant printing of money that central banks are doing.
Overall it was OK. If you're absolutely new to Value Investing, then it will be useful for you. But if I had to advise, I would say there are way better Value Investing books out there and spend money on that instead.
I got some information from it, specifically learning more about Gold. But I still have no idea on how I can evaluate the intrinsic value of gold (that is the problem with this book). Plus the upcoming age of crypto currency, I'm not sure how this book's suggestion for Gold will fare against the, possible, upcoming mayhem.
Crisp out of the box thinking and really explains the problem of the central bankers. It doesn't just highlight the economic problems of the modern world but also provides solutions. Amazing book for any investor!