● The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream
By Gary Shapiro
Interview with author via CNBC
The president of the Consumer Electronics Association, and author of the new book “The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream,” believes that America’s love for these products will help bolster the economy. “The U.S.,” he says, “is in trouble and innovation is the best path towards letting our kids have a better future.” The question is now whether there is enough innovation to jump-start things for 2011, especially after consumer confidence unexpectedly dipped in December. The Conference Board last Tuesday released a private report that said its index of consumer attitudes slipped in December. Shapiro says we will see improvement in 2011. “I do believe that consumer electronics has been a savior for the economy,” says Shapiro, noting that sales were down in 2009 but that 2010 actually saw growth. The Consumer Electronics Show, which had also seen declining attendance numbers over the last two years, is also predicted to be way up, according to Shapiro, “in every sector possible. There is phenomenal optimism.” The event begins January 5 in Las Vegas.

● Sonic Boom: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the New Global Economy
By Gregg Easterbrook
Summary via publisher, Random House
What did America get right in the nineteenth century that it’s getting wrong in the twenty-first? If Karl Marx were alive today, would he be hosting a show on Fox News? These are just a few of the provocative questions asked by Sonic Boom, a (mainly) optimistic look at the near future. Sonic Boom tells why the world’s economy is likely to be just fine, with prosperity increasing; why globalization will soon drive us even crazier than it does today; why “a chaotic, raucous, unpredictable, stress-inducing, free, prosperous, well-informed, and smart future is coming.” The book is rich with specific examples and advice on how to navigate your own way through the craziness that’s ahead. Forbes calls Gregg Easterbrook “the best writer on complex topics in the United States,” and Sonic Boom will show you why.
● Risk Tolerance in Financial Decision Making
Edited by Caterina Lucarelli and Gianni Brighetti
Summary via publisher, Macmillan
This book sheds light on the emotional side of risk taking behaviour using an innovative cross-disciplinary approach, mixing financial competences with psychology and affective neuroscience. In doing so, it shows the implications for market participants and regulators in terms of transparency and communication between intermediaries and customers.
● The Essential Financial Toolkit: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Finance But Were Afraid To Ask
By Javier Estrada
Summary via publisher, Macmillan
Math and jargon make essential financial concepts seem intimidating, but that is simply because most books do not have the goal of being accessible to interested readers – this book does. In ten easy-to-read chapters, it explains all the essential financial tools and concepts, fully illustrated with real-world examples and Excel implementations.
Math and jargon make essential financial concepts seem intimidating, but that is simply because most books do not have the goal of being accessible to interested readers – this book does. In ten easy-to-read chapters, it explains all the essential financial tools and concepts, fully illustrated with real-world examples and Excel implementations.
● When Wall Street Met Main Street: The Quest for an Investors’ Democracy
By Julia C. Ott
Summary via publisher, Harvard Unviversity Press
The financial crisis that began in 2008 has made Americans keenly aware of the enormous impact Wall Street has on the economic well-being of the nation and its citizenry. How did financial markets and institutions—commonly perceived as marginal and elitist at the beginning of the twentieth century—come to be seen as the bedrock of American capitalism? How did stock investment—once considered disreputable and dangerous—first become a mass practice?
Julia Ott tells the story of how, between the rise of giant industrial corporations and the Crash of 1929, the federal government, corporations, and financial institutions campaigned to universalize investment, with the goal of providing individual investors with a stake in the economy and the nation. As these distributors of stocks and bonds established a broad, national market for financial securities, they debated the distribution of economic power, the proper role of government, and the meaning of citizenship under modern capitalism.