Reviews and Comments

The book started out fairly innocuously, the author, although pretty evidently trying to position himself as the "voice of reason" between the doomsday preppers and the naive rest, gives general advice on how to reason about the crises one might face, as well as specific tips & tricks on how to prepare for them.

However, Part II, and especially Chapter 7 "Safeguarding your savings" has some serious problems. It starts out by giving a rather nuanced history of money and economic organization, though the author sticks to examples of transactional ledger-based systems. I won't debate its accuracy as I'm no expert on this, and it's not the focus of the book anyway.

The author then goes into giving financial advice, explaining all options of safeguarding one's rainy day fund, the pros and cons of different types of investment and so on. While trying to give an impression of having an unbiased view, it is far from it.

Firstly, the section is definitely US-centred, and aimed at "middle-income folks", though any mention of these biases is done by prefacing it with "for example". The chapter completely avoids talking about what to do if you live payday to payday, apart from "try to cut your expenses". Some crises such as accidental injuries and unemployment are much less dire in countries with robust social safety nets.

Secondly, some of the author's political bias creeps out at points. In the section titled "Confiscation of wealth", the author talks of "confiscatory taxes … that may be levied in tumultuous times—almost always on minority groups…" He then gives the definition of minorities as "any differentiated slice of society that doesn't wield majority sway over politics. This might be the ultra-poor as well as the ultra-rich; ti might be palm readers or people who listen to jazz." This completely avoids the imbalance of power between the poor and the rich in the real world, and relativises this imbalance of power as if it's a choice of preference. In the same section, the author goes on to demonise the idea of a wealth tax, and gives an impression of Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" as a "manifesto" for increasing taxes on top earners, sandwitching the sentence between one about "recast[ing] top earners as villains" and "renewed antipathy toward the affluent". (p. 72)

Lastly, I'd like to mention the author's view of money (p. 50): "a claim check on society, awarded for your contributions to the well-being of others and redeemable toward the pursuit of your own life goals—be it friendship, or love, or the desire to master a rare skill… the quintessential decision is … how to make every transaction count."

Charity within his outlook on money has the following role to play (p.88): "The final defence against catastrophic losses can be thoughtful charity. As hinted earlier, you can use some of your assets to help out dependable friends, relatives, and coworkers in need. If you do this enough, it's likely that at least some would reciprocate if you ever fall onto hard times. Remember: it's not about how much you spend or don't spend; it's about how you make every transaction count."

To sum up, the book so far has been informative, but I suggest to be extra scrutinizing when taking the advices outlined in it.

As a final note, I want to mention that I got the impression that the author cites sources very selectively. Some of his claims are cited, while others lack any proof. Coupled with with the dry language and constant appeal to being unbiased and balanced, I see it as another reason to be critical (as in, not uncritical) of the information presented in the book.

Note: to be clear, it is not the presence of biases that I dislike, it's trying to give the impression of being rational and unbiased that I take issue with.