Economics ... history and future

I promised some more non-fiction reviews and here are a few loosely tied to economics, opportunity and business history.

I had high hopes for LIFTOFF by Donovan Livingston, but it frankly read as more petulant than inspiring to me, even though it is subtitled “from the Classroom to the Stars.” Maybe that was because this was originally crafted to be a spoken verse graduation speech and therefore it conveyed a sense of yearning and need for dialogue? 

Somehow, LIFTOFF just felt like it was not directed to my teachers or students who already read and discuss The Other Wes Moore. They might honestly be more interested in the foreword Moore wrote or in his organization, BridgeEdU, which works to make college completion more attainable.  

If you wish, you can decide for yourself; here is a YouTube video link to Donovan Livingston’s speech. 

I also recently read Benjamin C. Waterhouse's THE LAND OF ENTERPRISE which is subtitled "A Business History of the United States." Waterhouse, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, is correct when he opines that we too often "relegate business to the margins of the tale" of  American history.  As a regular reader of "the daily dairy of the American dream" (The Wall Street Journal), I often reflect on business' impact on society.

This ambitious and heavily foot-noted text covers economic activity from colonial times to the present. Waterhouse gives many, many examples in 12 chapters which deal with eras from "Conquest, Colonies and Capitalism" through "Factories Come to America" to "Finance Takes Flight." In "Business Gets Big," for example, he explains how our modern negative images of big business "embody the enduring cultural power of the large corporations that emerged to dominate American business in the late 19th century," including railroads, steel and oil. Waterhouse's chapter titled "After the Industrial Economy" would pair nicely with the more specific case study in  The Glass House by Brian Alexander. In all honestly, I think the text is a bit too dense for our high school students, but college history students and business practitioners would likely be surprised by many of the details he includes.

THE FINANCIAL DIARIES by Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider is a very insightful look at "how American families cope in a world of uncertainty," arguing that it is volatility in cash flow rather than differences in income levels which contributes to inequality and difficulties with long-term financial planning.

Last Fall our students read excerpts from J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy and and I can see them also building empathy for Becky and Jeremy Moore and other Financial Diaries Households.  Morduch and Schneider describe how their team of ten researchers lived in Ohio, Kentucky, California, Mississippi, and New York while learning about cash flow for 235 households - collecting information on over 300,000 transactions between 2012 and 2013. The data is presented in numerous bar graphs and in stories with quotes like, "Work, family and church are the constants in Janice's life. And worry." Many readers will find the uncertainty and the extent of month to month fluctuations for low and lower-middle income families to be shocking. THE FINANCIAL DIARIES received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

That somewhat more scholarly text could easily complement The Unbanking of America which we have recommended to Junior Theme students. And, perhaps it would add a layer of insight to a recent Census Bureau report about The Changing Economics and Demographics Young Adulthood from 1975 to 2016.  Amongst the key findings is the degree to which young adults increasingly live with parents:

[Source: U.S. Census Bureau]

Look for these new non-fiction titles (part 2):

THE UNBANKING OF AMERICA by University of Pennsylvania Professor Lisa Servon explores issues related to the current banking system and growing alternatives.  Somewhat like Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed), Servon recounts her personal experiences working briefly as a teller at RiteCheck, a check-cashing business in the South Bronx, and as a payday lender in Oakland.  Throughout this book she uses facts and statistics to support her observations; the author’s note, footnotes and bibliography are over 50 pages long. 

Servon’s subtitle is “How the New Middle Class Survives” and she recounts the movement away from banks and credit cards by middle and lower income Americans. We are currently recommending THE UNBANKING OF AMERICA to Junior Theme students interested in economic trends/changes, inequality, and class divisions.  Many are surprised at data such as these findings based on a recent (2013) FDIC survey:

“approximately 8 percent of Americans were unbanked and another 20 percent were underbanked. The picture looks far worse for people of color. One in five African American households and nearly 18 percent of Latino households are unbanked.”

Extremely well-researched, THE UNBANKING OF AMERICA received starred reviews from Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.

Thoughts on possible pairings include Hillbilly Elegy or “World’s Eight Richest People Have Same Wealth as Poorest 50” (recently posted by The Guardian and other media outlets) and maybe the forthcoming The Financial Diaries which has a similar cover from Princeton University Press.