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Dice Have No Memory
Book

Dice Have No Memory

Big Bets and Bad Economics from Paris to the Pampas

William Bonner
Wiley, 2011

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Controversial
  • Innovative
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Bill Bonner’s curmudgeonly blog posts are so well crafted that they are pretty entertaining, even if you disagree with his conclusions. This collection of his best columns from 1999 to 2010 from his newsletter, The Daily Reckoning, displays his unusual combination of hard-hitting analysis and witty writing. The compilation includes excerpts in which Bonner recommended gold when gold wasn’t cool and bashed Alan Greenspan before that was fashionable. A constant contrarian, Bonner takes positions that might seem extreme: Central banking is a waste of time, he believes, and government can do nothing right. Yet Bonner delivers his opinions in a style that can make even a skeptic enjoy his wry way with words. While some of his ideas seem intended more to shock than illuminate – he advocates letting a Great Depression happen and contends that people are poor because they prefer poverty to working – getAbstract suggests this collection as a distinctive, contentious and conservatively controversial take on economic doings.

Take-Aways

  • Economics is not a science, and economists are usually wrong.
  • Central bankers have unpegged their currencies from the gold standard, so money’s value relies on nothing more than faith.
  • Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke presided over the biggest credit bubble ever, printing more dollars than all their predecessors combined.

About the Author

Bill Bonner is the president and CEO of Agora Publishing. Bonner also created The Daily Reckoning blog.

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