Book

O'Rourke, P. J., author.

None of my business : P.J. explains money, banking, debt, equity, assets, liabilities, and why he's not rich and neither are you / P.J. O'Rourke.

First edition.

New York, NY : Atlantic Monthly Press, an imprint of Grovw Atlantic, 2018.

©2018

xi, 244 pages ; 22 cm

P.J. O'Rourke takes on his scariest subjects yet -- business, investment, finance, and the political chicanery behind them. Want to get rich overnight for free in 3 easy steps with no risk? Then don't buy this book. (Actually, if you believe there's a book that can do that, you shouldn't buy any books because you probably can't read.) P.J.'s approach to business, investment, and finance is different. He takes the risks for you in his chapter "How I Learned Economics by Watching People Try to Kill Each Other." He proposes "A Way to Raise Taxes That We'll All Love"--A 200% tax on celebrities. He offers a brief history of economic transitions before exploring the world of high tech innovation with a chapter on "Unnovations," which asks, "The Internet--whose idea was it to put all the idiots on earth in touch with each other?" He misunderstands bitcoin, which seems "like a weird scam invented by strange geeks with weaponized slide rules in the high school Evil Math Club." He closes with a fanciful short story about the morning that P.J. wakes up and finds that all the world's goods and services are free! This is P.J. at his finest, a book not to be missed.

Money -- Humor.

Investments -- Humor.

Banks and banking -- Humor.

Essays.

Humor.

"Chapters have appeared in a previous version in American consequences and Standsberry digest"--Title page verso.

Foreword: Why I'm not rich and you aren't either -- Section I: How I learned economics by watching people try to kill each other -- Introduction -- The power of the economic impulse -- The real secret behind all investment scams -- (Topic for discussion) If you want hard money, how hard do you have to be to get it? -- Section II: Money and banking -- Introduction -- The strange, shape-shifting symbol of value -- My own personal central bank -- Negative interest rates: not only wrong but evil -- Debt jubilee -- Section III: Mutant capitalism -- Introduction: The mutants -- One good thing about mutant capitalists: they aren't playing Monopoly -- What are corporations for? -- Section IV: The transition -- Introduction: The digital age and which digit it's giving us -- A brief history of economic transitions -- A blockhead confronts the blockchain -- What's the connection? -- What has the digital revolution done to print media? -- Five lessons about the digital economy from a member of the digital generation -- Innovation: it's all in your head -- Innovations that get no respect -- Unnovations -- Six geniuses (plus some cartoon animators) try to see into the future -- A ray of hope in the contest between man and machine -- Section V: Consumption -- Introduction: Some thoughts on the history of trade -- The price of being middle class -- Armchair predictions about consumer trends -- Consumer trends among the "grumpies" -- Consumer trends among the "grumpies," part 2 -- Summing up American consumer trends -- All the money in the world -- Section VI: Random walk -- Introduction -- Five things I know about China -- Doubts about Asia -- Thoughts while cleaning the chicken coop -- Six lessons from a man on horseback -- Sympathy for the devil -- Reform or deform? -- Free-for-all!

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