Decades ago a fearless woman managed to change Wall Street forever. Her name was Wilma Soss and she spoke truth to powerful men running massive public stocks. What was clear from reading "Fearless: Wilma Soss and America's Forgotten Investor Movement" by Janice Traflet and Robert Wright, is that she was a force to be reckoned with and we should be grateful to her. She got large corporations to listen to the concerns of individual investors. Those high-rolling CEOs didn't like it, but she didn't stop.
In his book Retail Gangster: The INSANE, Real-Life Story of Razy Eddie, Gary Weiss deftly tells the story of three mind-bogglingly complicated things at the same time: The history of the Antar clan, the state of New York City in the 1970s and 1980s, and the nature of the epic fraud committed by Crazy Eddie’s CEO, Eddie Antar, and his cronies. Weiss does all that without scrambling your brain. It's a must-read.
Spencer Jakab has produced a book that tackles a complex piece of recent history, and yet makes it understandable and entertaining for those not familiar with the ways of Wall St. “The Revolution that Wasn’t: GameStop, Reddit and the Fleecing of Small Investors,” published February 2022, deals with the period when a group of small investors communicating via Reddit pushed up the value of some stocks of beleaguered companies and inflicted huge losses on seasoned Wall Street pros, who in turn got hit with massive losses. This story screams “David versus Goliath,” only not in the holy land thousands of years ago, but rather on Wall Street recently and with a twist.
There's a growing concern that the capitalist system isn't working enough for everyone. Step forward Universal Basic Income (UBI,) a government-funded monthly stipend that citizens would receive if the idea is realized. Proponents think it might solve the perceived ills of our system. Annie Lowrey writes about it in her book titled "Give People Money: How A Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, And Remake The World."
How good or bad is the so-called gig economy compared to holding a permanent staff role? It all depends on who you ask. Sarah Kessler, author of Gigged: The End of the Job and the Future of Work, spoke with more than a few people about the matter and discusses it at length.
The chances are high you'll eventually end up working with people who battle mental illness. How can you learn about it without visiting the psych ward? You could do far worse than read the recently published Walk A Mile: Tales of a Wandering Loon by Chris Young. It's the story of a working man who battles his illness and mostly wins.