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    How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say--And What It Really Means
    How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say--And What It Really Means
    How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say--And What It Really Means
    Audiobook9 hours

    How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say--And What It Really Means

    Written by John Lanchester

    Narrated by Sean Pratt

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    To those who don't speak it, the language of money can seem impenetrable and its ideas too complex to grasp. How to Speak Money is acclaimed writer John Lanchester's entertaining and informative attempt to bridge the gap between the money people and the rest of us.

    With characteristic wit and candor ("wickedly funny" --Dwight Garner, New York Times), Lanchester shows how the world of finance and economics really works--from the terms and conditions of your personal checking account to the evasions of bankers appearing in front of Congress. How to Speak Money reveals how the language of money is often a tool to conceal and mislead; he explains hundreds of common economic terms, from GDP to the IMF, amortization and securitization to collateralized debt obligation; and he argues that we all need to speak money lest those who do write the financial rules for themselves.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAscent Audio
    Release dateNov 1, 2014
    ISBN9781469092003
    How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say--And What It Really Means
    Author

    John Lanchester

    John Lanchester is a British journalist and novelist. His critically-acclaimed first novel, The Debt to Pleasure, won the Whitbread First Novel Award.

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    • 5/5
      John Lanchester is a novelist, but this is a non-fiction book about economic and financial terms and what they mean - most of it in the form of a lexicon. In the essays which top and tail the lexicon, Lanchester explains why he decided to produce such a book. Partly it was an offshoot of a novel he was writing about the financial crisis - he had to teach himself this language and he wanted to share that. But even more, he believes that it is important that ordinary people understand the language well enough to engage in the discussions about it - the jargon didn't arise as a form of obfuscation, but it has that effect if people think that the issues are too complicated for them to understand. Lanchester points out that speaking the language doesn't mean that you agree with a particular point of view - economists argue with each other all the time - and a lot of the discussions are really about things like different values, which we could all get involved in if we could just get past the language barrier.The details of modern money are often complicated, but the principles underlying those details aren’t; I want this book to leave you much more confident in your own sense of what those principles are. Money is a lot like babies, and once you know the language, the rule is the same as that put forward by Dr Spock: ‘Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.’In order to help us do this, Lanchester has produced a lexicon which is clear, readable and witty (there's an entry on the difference between bullshit and nonsense - the first is exaggeration, a normal part of life and especially of sales - the second is trying to persuade people of things which could never be true, and is dangerous).It's also nice to read someone who is sceptical of neoliberal ideas without being ranty. In fact, because he is not defending a particular school of thought, Lanchester is able to point out that all the models have something wrong with them. They should be seen as explanatory guides, aids to understanding - but because of the bitter and politicised debates, they have become rigid laws.It has to be said that if you don’t appreciate the miraculous power of markets, their astonishing ability to match buyer and seller, to meet needs, to find prices which clear themselves of goods, to satisfy wants that consumers didn’t know they had, to create livelihoods in an astonishing proliferation of nooks and niches and specialisms and crafts and skills – if you don’t appreciate those things then you’ve probably never really ‘got’ economics, and you are also missing out on something of the wonder and variety and complexity of human culture. Having said that, if you think that markets are magically the solution to everything and have some kind of mystical inherent ability to always be right and to self-regulate in all conditions, all weathers, all extremities and despite all unforeseen circumstances, well then, you are probably a neo-liberal economist.So, in the book itself, you get the difference between macro- and micro-economics; you get the deep weirdness of the whole concept of money itself; you get some interesting history (the controversy in the US about the whole idea of having a central bank!); and some jawdropping statistics (the property stock in the London borough of Wandsworth is worth only slightly less than the entire stock of Northern Ireland). And I learnt a lot about the financial terminology and what it means - the definitions weren't always as comprehensive or useful as they might have been in a dictionary, but reading the book and thinking about the contents has left me feeling much more confident about what I do and don't know, and having enough baseline knowledge to go off and research more where that is necessary.
    • 4/5
      Another highly enjoyable Lanchester book who remains an indispensable guide to the complexities of the financial system. The dictionary format makes this a fast read.
    • 5/5
      Until now, John Lanchester has been an outstanding British novelist. But How to Speak Money is a non-fiction work that will expand his fame— unless the financial services industry sends a hit man to silence Lanchester because he understands how they speak money.The book begins with a 62 page essay on The Language of Money that reviews ancient and modern ways of hiding truth about money. Next is the heart of the book: A Lexicon of Money, 175 pages about 292 words, phrases, acronyms and names whose updated definitions will worry the industry—but will it stimulate the regulatory agencies? Of the money-speak words he invents, headliner is reversification. * It describes money words we think we know until Lanchester redefines them. Examples:synergy Mainly bullshit, but when it does mean anything, it means merging two companies and taking the opportunity to sack people. [Page 232 of ebook edition]supply-side…in practice means “rich people economics” in which the rich get tax breaks and spend money…that “trickles-down” through the economy and everyone benefits. If that was going to work, you’d think it would have kicked in by now. [Pp. 228-9] Lanchester’s research is extensive, his background helpful (was the son of a British banking employee in Hong Kong) and his language is in the finest traditions of English wit and satire. To use an 18th Century phrase, his book will “teach and delight.” In 21st Century usage, it will clarify and alarm. If you suspect the country is headed in the wrong direction, the book will give you yet more reason to believe we are headed for another cliff. He makes the case that those who speak Money learned a comforting lesson from the 2008 hits to the financial system: Why worry? When stuff happens so do taxpayer bailouts. Plus our bets are with other people’s money.The book concludes with a 35 page Afterword that says we may have time yet to redirect our current path to the next abyss. But the “we” depends on the “them,” as in the new congress and the existing president, which is like hope without action, as in jet without propulsion.
    • 4/5
      How to Speak Money – Very Funny John Lanchester has followed up his highly successful book Whoops!, with a funnier but brilliant account and well timed book, How To Speak Money. Be honest we all know that if bankers and economists want to exclude all people from listening in to their conversations they start talking money. It can go straight over your head as it seems so obscure as to exclude most. Once up on a time when I had a sensible job I used to be a mortgage underwriter and was part of this world where money and its uses had its very own language. This is what Lanchester brings us in this funny but honestly well written account.As John Lanchester shows us in the book that we are not being stupid if we do not understand what the money men are talking about, even the suggestion that they make it hard to understand and that made me smile as the book shows once deciphered it is easy to understand. Rather like those who have MBAs or management speech once you clear the unnecessary words it is clear what they are talking about.He is also able to show us that all money men are not above using euphemisms to hide what they really mean and within the book we get an excellent lexicon of all this. Rather than saying sacking or making redundant we get “reducing payroll” or “synergy” all words that should send a shudder down your back.One of my personal favourite metaphors that Lanchester uses is in the description of the World Bank and the IMF. One that hands out loans is nice and cuddly out good cop and the other is the bad cop, I wish I could have thought of that as probably the best description for them both.How To Speak Money is one of the funniest, most needed polemics for a long time, something that will be kept on my bookshelf as an interesting but required reference book. This may sound like a very serious book way to heavy for a normal person to read, but it is gentle and entertaining while being informative. If you want to keep up with what is happening in our economy now and in the future this is the book for you.