The Malign Hand of the Markets

by John Staddon

When a professor of neurobiology writes a book like this, it seems easy to pass it off as a cross-discipline, “make easy money from an obvious situation” kind of stunt, almost. But this book is extremely insightful, carefully written, highly detailed, and probably accurate. It points out that there is more to economics than meets the eye and that when human behavior is involved, financial markets are at risk from other forces besides supply, demand, interest rates and the like.

Your money is at risk because ignorance creates gaps in knowledge, gaps in knowledge cause specious thinking, and specious thinking causes illogical behavior. This leads to laws and regulations that actually work to make the situation worse, not better. Can all this be prevented? The author thinks so, but I think not nearly enough people are reading this book (or writing others like it) to change the economic policies of the world much. And that’s scary.

This is an interesting and original book. Not everyone will agree with what it posits, but there are enough graphs, illustrations, and logical arguments to convince most free-thinking readers. I don’t hold out much hope for positive change, but I’m glad I read this book. At least I can steer myself clear of the malign hand, even if the government won’t do it for me.

The Chinese Way to Wealth and Prosperity

by Michael Justin  Lee

The author, Michael Lee, has peppered this book with stories and anecdotes from Chinese history, both from the world at large and from the history of the Chinese experience in America. But telling these stories and sprinkling some common sense investment practices explanations with terminology in Chinese does not by any means make this a book about “The Chinese Way” to do anything. Just because there is a word for it in Chinese doesn’t mean it was absorbed by Western society from Eastern culture. It could just be common sense (and often, it is).

Still, this is an interesting and helpful book, clearly written, well organized, and short and to the point. There are a few inconsistencies that detract from it to make it only an average book on the “utility in investing” scale. For example, on page 4: “Your diamonds...are in your own back yard...” Page 54: (the title of one whole section, no less) “Invest Beyond Your Backyard”. The common sense can be boiled down to any number of simple topics, all of which have been written about before: Don’t waste your money, invest in an education, buy things with value, etc. These only have to do with “The Chinese Way” in that, people need to do these things to be prosperous, whether they are Chinese or not.

Given the tenuous connection of this book to (specifically) the Chinese Way (leaving the argument about whether the Chinese are, in fact, wealthy and prosperous), this is not the best book on investing, and certainly not the best book to learn about Chinese financial goings on and the like. But the average reader should be able to get through the book easily enough and pull out some valuable insight, making it well worth three dollar marks.