● All the Presidents’ Money: How the Men Who Governed America Governed Their Money
Megan Gorman
Interview with author via The Stacking Benjamins Show
Wealth historian Megan Gorman stops by the basement and drops intriguing nuggets on how U.S. presidents like FDR and Ulysses S. Grant navigated their finances. There are many lessons you can learn from these iconic figures. Later, our headline conversation meanders through ERISA’s 50-year legacy and political party impacts on investments, as preparations unfold for an RV trip to Oregon. The adventure continues with exotic travel stories, packing tips, and reflections on Dave Barry’s life lessons. Listener engagement and very-important debates, including daylight savings time, ensure there’s never a dull moment! Join the lively trio of Joe, OG, and Doug as they blend retirement strategies with a dash of humor, exploring everything from coffee mugs to memes.
● Trailblazers, Heroes, and Crooks: Stories to Make You a Smarter Investor
Stephen R. Foerster
Review via Ivey Business School
Foerster blends historical storytelling with practical insights, demonstrating how understanding past investment successes and failures can help you sharpen your own strategy. His book serves as a call for investors to temper their emotions and adopt a disciplined, evidence-based philosophy. As Foerster explains, “We don’t always act rationally when it comes to investing. We often get excited and look at investment opportunities through rose-colored glasses. We’re overconfident in our stock-picking abilities.”
From a 12th-century Venetian hostage crisis that gave birth to government bonds, to the infamous Coca-Cola press conference where Cristiano Ronaldo’s gesture appeared to cost the company $4 billion in stock value, Foerster weaves together engaging stories that reflect the human side of investing—complete with greed, mistakes, and the occasional triumph.
● The Burning Earth: A History
Sunil Amrith
Review via Financial Times
The biggest story of our time is not the US presidential election or Elon Musk’s ego. It is our destruction of the natural world, which places into jeopardy our own future. Sadly, this story is depressing and overwhelming, and therefore not generally the stuff of bestsellers.
It is also, as Sunil Amrith reminds us in The Burning Earth, not a new story. His narrative begins in England in 1217. Two years after Magna Carta, the nobility secured a “Charter of the Forest” that would facilitate their exploitation of land, timber and game. For the rich, the freedom to influence laws went hand-in-hand with the freedom to plunder nature. So it has been ever since.
● Path to Zero: 12 Climate Conversations That Changed the World
Tucker Perkins
Summary via publisher (Simon & Schuster)
Tucker Perkins’ Path to Zero shows how we can reverse climate change and create a cleaner environment for future generations by putting aside our biases and working together for change. Climate catastrophe-inspired narratives like “Electrify Everything!” have a grip on people’s minds. The simplicity of the solution to the most complex endeavor ever faced by humans—the journey to a net zero future—is seductive, but it is fundamentally flawed. In Path to Zero: 12 Climate Conversations That Changed the World, author, Tucker Perkins takes readers on a series of future-casting journeys from the Year 2050 back to the present day to show us how a better way—a wide path to net zero carbon emissions—was, and can be, achieved in an accelerated time frame.
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