As usual, this author can do no wrong in my eyes. His books are insightful, informative, funny...what more can you ask for? Oh yes, they are also really frightening. This touches base in what may be the still waiting to collapse (or freshly collapsed) economies of the world and tells of how and why they find themselves in so much trouble. Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and the local governments in the U.S. all get the treatment and make you wonder over and over again...HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
In Iceland, Range Rovers catch fire more than anywhere else. The locals borrowed to buy them with foreign currency and when their local currency failed the value of the loans on the $35, 000 vehicle was now $100,000 and with the failure came unemployment. The solution is the set it on fire and collect the insurance.
In Greece, people are not accustomed to paying their taxes but enjoy high paying government jobs. Now they want other countries to bail them out so they can keep their generous retirement benefits and low retirement age (the best in the Eurozone). Not surprisingly, this is unpopular with Germans who will work longer and harder to pay the Greeks to retire younger and richer.
Every bank in Ireland would have failed but the government said they would bail them out - $10.6 trillion in losses which would consume 100% of all taxes for the next 4 years.
I don't even want to write about the U.S. chapter.
How will this turn out? Nobody knows but you have to figure it won't be a thing of beauty like this book.
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