● The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life
Morgan Housel
Q&A with author via Kiplinger
Q: The title of your new book is The Art of Spending Money. How is spending money an art?
A: It’s an art because it’s not a science. I wish I could say, here’s how everybody should spend, but I don’t think a formula for how everyone should spend exists. The spending that works for me and makes me happy might be wrong for you, and vice versa. Some people might find that disappointing, that I’m basically giving an overview of the psychology of spending money. But you have to figure it out for yourself, because I don’t know you or your life experiences. I’m still trying to figure all this out for myself, too.

● Hidden Investment Treasures: How to Find Great Stock Investments as the Investment World Goes Passive
Daniel Gladiš
Summary via publisher (Wiley)
Veteran portfolio manager Daniel Gladiš, CFA, delivers a foundational and inspiring new playbook for actively capturing higher returns at lower risk in a market dominated today by passive money. Gladis walks you through real investment cases exemplifying how to take advantage of growing inefficiency in the financial markets. He demonstrates specific analytical techniques and strategic reasoning essential to uncovering underpriced securities that can yield superior long-term returns.

● Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power Are Ruining Our Lives and Planet
Chuck Collins
Summary via publisher (The New Press)
Recently, it has become increasingly evident that extreme concentrations of wealth and power have profound impacts on our politics, but extreme inequality’s influence on our daily lives—and our futures—has been vastly overlooked. Author and a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, Chuck Collins chronicles how the actions of the top .01% have severe consequences for the rest of us, especially those of marginalized identities. Collins takes down the “myth of meritocracy,” unraveling how the rich rig the game in their favor, resulting in a concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny (but growing) class of billionaires—leading to both intense income and political polarization.

● Consequences: The Rise of a Fractured World Order
William W. Priest, et al.
Summary via publisher (Wiley)
The authors deliver an engaging, timely, and insightful analysis of identifying the sources and challenges facing liberal democracies and their ability to confront autocracies and autocratic behavior. The authors identify and address structural flaws present in both democracies and autocracies. The book explains why the creation and distribution of wealth matters in creating nations where democracy can flourish, and the populace at large can win. Strategies for the creation of wealth (broadly defined) and its equitable distribution combined with the democratic tools that voters, investors, and citizens have available make it more likely those strategies can be deployed.

● The Law of Capitalism and How to Transform It
Katharina Pistor
Summary via publisher (Yale U. Press)
Even though capitalism has been conventionally described as an economic system, it is actually a deeply entrenched legal regime. Law provides the material for coding simple objects, promises, and ideas as capital assets. It also provides the means for avoiding the legal constraints that societies have frequently imposed on capitalism. Often lauded for creating levels of wealth unprecedented in human history, capitalism is also largely responsible for the two greatest problems now confronting humanity: the erosion of social and political cohesion, which undermines democratic self-governance, and the threats that emanate from climate change. By exploring the ways that Western legal systems empower individuals to advance their interests against society, Katharina Pistor reveals how capitalism is an unsustainable system designed to foster inequity. She offers ideas for rethinking how the transformation of the law and the economy can help us create a more just system—before it is too late.

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