基本信息·出版社：Simon & Schuster ·页码：288 页 ·出版日期：2002年02月 ·ISBN：0684864991 ·条形码：9780684864990 ·版本：第1版 ·装帧：平装 ...
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Squandering Aimlessly: On the Road with the Host of Public Radio's "Marketplace" |
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Squandering Aimlessly: On the Road with the Host of Public Radio's "Marketplace" |
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基本信息·出版社：Simon & Schuster
·页码：288 页
·出版日期：2002年02月
·ISBN：0684864991
·条形码：9780684864990
·版本：第1版
·装帧：平装
·开本：32开 Pages Per Sheet
·外文书名：能挣会花
内容简介 Publisher Comments:
If you suddenly found yourself with a windfall, how would you spend it? That is the question David Brancaccio sought to answer as he embarked on a personal finance pilgrimage across America. The result is a fantastic journey brought to life by a gifted writer and most talented observer who has become one of public radio's biggest stars. Many people listen to Brancaccio on "Marketplace" not only for his ideas about money, but also for his keen and unusual take on life. Faced with the idea of this windfall, it comes as no surprise that he would take this trip to explore all the possibilities shopping at the grandest of all malls; gambling in Las Vegas; investing on Wall Street; starting a business in California; buying a home in Leavittown, New York; putting it away for retirement in Arizona. He confronts a host of practical and philosophical issues: In buying a house the best thing to do with your money? Is investing in mutual funds safer and more profitable than gambling? Are material possessions more or less important in life than supporting socially responsible companies? What about using it to follow a dream? The results teach us a lot about money, but even more about the way Americans think about the things that matter most to us.
Synopsis:
The host of public radio's enormously popular, award-winning show "Marketplace" brings his clever, inventive approach to all matters--financial and otherwise--in an irreverent, humor-filled, cross-country adventure that explores America as only Brancaccio can.
Synopsis:
What would you do if you received a sudden financial windfall? David Brancaccio, whose ability to clarify economic matters has made public radio's Marketplace a hit, set out to discover where, why, and how people are spending their riches — whether it's proceeds from stock options, profits from the sale of a house, or an unexpected inheritance or bonus.
His journey takes readers from Minnesota's Mall of America to the
financial caverns of Wall Street, to a college set among the oil wells of West Texas. He gathers wisdom on money and its uses from California entrepreneurs, a drifter in the desert, a U.S. treasury secretary, and many others from all walks of life. The result is at once a delightful adventure and an eye-opening report on America's attitudes about spending, saving, and investing.
Amazon.com
David Brancaccio's Squandering Aimlessly is a rare treat--an insightful look at economic matters that is also a terrific read. Through his award-winning Marketplace radio program, Brancaccio has become a popular commentator with a distinctive take on financial issues. In his first book, he smoothly transfers this perspective to the description of an entertaining literary pilgrimage designed to answer the eternal question "How should one spend an unexpected windfall?" It was, after all, a query Brancaccio felt compelled to explore. "As host of a public radio program about money, I am asked all the time about what to do with it," he writes. "I needed to answer that question for myself before I could have anything meaningful to say about other people's money."
In a journey as personal as it is universal, Brancaccio crisscrosses America to examine possible responses to a monetary bolt from the blue: "spend it on a shopping spree, do good, start a business, gamble with it, give it away, invest it in the markets, buy a house, go back to school, retire early, save it for a rainy day." Hooking up with an array of savvy individuals who are focused upon these divergent alternatives, he ultimately discovers that true fiscal fulfillment is achieved only when individual needs and wants are really understood and successfully balanced. More to the immediate point, however, he also uncovers a perfect way to judge the expenditure of any honest-to-goodness surplus: the ability to answer yes when asked if the money's use, whatever it is, will have a lasting, positive impact on your life.
--Howard Rothman
From Publishers Weekly
Brancaccio writes like the public radio broadcaster he is (on the show Marketplace), in slow, even tones, savoring every detail of his stories, in firm control of where he is going but in no hurry to get there. This is not a book you attack, but one you surrender to. In fact, so easy is it to read that when you put it down after the last page, you will have no idea if you have painlessly learned anything or have just been entertained. The book consists of 10 travel vignettes arranged around the topic of spending money. Brancaccio wonders what he would do with a sudden windfall: save, spend, invest, retire, give it away or something else. For each answer he travels to various places to experiment and discuss the solution with people he meets. Having secured an advance for this very book, he goes to Minnesota's Mall of America to shop, to Las Vegas to gamble, to Levittown to investigate buying a house. Each story ends with morals, souvenirs and life resolutions. The author is intensely introspective and easily disoriented, so an ordinary trip to a mall seems psychedelic; Las Vegas, Silicon Valley and Wall Street seem like other galaxies. The only fixed referents in this world are eccentric individuals and attitudes toward money. Brancaccio is deliberately impressionable, and he has a knack of discovering interesting attitudes, empathizing with them completely and then analyzing them. He finds that generosity is common, as are guilt, insecurity, confusion and regret. However, there is very little of either greed or indifference. Perhaps the most important message of the book is that no one seems to have a good answer to the question of what to do with money. Neither professional money managers, professional thinkers nor gamblers have the secret. The people Brancaccio meets who are happy and secure do not worry much about money, but seem to have enough (everyone else has a problem, either financial or emotional or both)--but the cause and effect of this relation is not clear. (Feb.)
About the Author
David Brancaccio is host and senior editor of Marketplace, public radio's award-winning business program. A broadcaster and reporter for more than twenty-five years, he lives in Los Angeles, California.
Book Dimension
Height (mm) 216 Width (mm) 141
媒体推荐 Mike Maza
The Dallas Morning News Unpretentious...humorous, light-handed....By the end, you'll have a firmer grasp of real-world economics. --
Review 目录 1. The Naked Truth About Money
2. Going Back to Shop Class
Spending at the Mall of America, Bloomington, Minnesota
3. Invest Like Your Very Liberal Mother Is Watching
Being socially responsible, Jackson Hole, Wyoming
4. Be Your Own Boss
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