David Smick keeps a low profile, but experts consider him one of the most insightful financial market strategists in the world. For more than two decades, he has conferred with central bankers (such as Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke) and advised top Wall Street executives and investors, from George Soros to Michael Steinhardt to Stan Druckenmiller. Political leaders (from Bill Bradley to Jack Kemp) have regularly sought his policy advice.

The World Is Curved picks up where Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat left off, taking readers on an insider’s tour through the private offices of central bankers, finance ministers, even prime ministers. Smick reveals how today’s risky environment came to be—and why the mortgage mess is a symptom of potentially far more devastating trouble. He wrestles with the two questions on everyone’s mind: How bad could things really get in today’s volatile economy? And what can we do about it?

Drawing on riveting anecdotes in language anyone can understand, Smick explains:

• Why the churning cauldron we call China (the next great bubble to burst) represents a powerful threat to everyone’s pocketbook
• How Japanese housewives have taken control of their nation’s savings, and why it matters to us
• How greed-driven bankers and investment bankers have put everyone’s pensions and 401(k)s at risk
• Why today’s “incredible shrinking central banks” may not be able to save us when the next crisis hits
• Why the big-money Russian, Chinese, Saudi, and Dubai sovereign wealth funds represent a tectonic shift in global financial power, away from the United States, Europe, and Japan
• Why the world desperately needs a “big think” financial doctrine to guide today’s dangerous ocean of money

The World Is Curved is the rare book that speaks simultaneously to the Wall Street, Washington, and London elite, yet its apt storytelling shows Main Street readers how to survive in these turbulent times.

Customer Rating:
Summary: All the endorsements are a mystery to me
Comment: Based on the endorsements for this book I assumed I would be getting an in depth description of how international finance worked and maybe a clue as to why so many were worried about trade deficits and the possible demise of the dollar.

Instead, what I got was more boosterism about free trade, globalization, and entrepeneurship - and warnings to politicians to not mess with this glorious world. No nuance. Very shallow.

Why it received so many prominent endorsements is a mystery to me. Rather than educating, the book just promotes political viewpoints.
I would not like to see free trade disrupted, but I have read all his arguments a hundred times before.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Bubble
Comment: The book is an almost timely look behind the scenes at the world's financial bubbles. It was published after the subprime crisis but before the collapse of Wall Street's investment community. The author attempts to justify the continued practices of this community while calling for inspired attempts to regulate it. He has no real suggestions on how this could be done. He defends the system as moving people out of poverty in great numbers defined by those who no longer live on less than $1 a day. I would suggest that living on $2 a day is no less a reasonable definition of poverty.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: World Economics for Dummies 101A
Comment: The world is curved is filled with easily understood facts and figures but will astound the unknowing person. We are being kept in the dark by the drive by media and this book will shed light on our faultering economy. This is a good read.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: great book
Comment: If you wish to understand globalization and the global economy,
this book is for you. Well written, wordy in parts, but a good
reference as well.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Very readable introduction to modern international finance
Comment: First, the con: Smick is totally full of himself.

Pro: Very readable introduction to modern (up through Bear Stearns) international finance. To borrow the author's favorite metaphor, he channels a wide and deep river of facts, theories, opinions to describe the impact of the global ocean of money that surges through the financial world and influences everything.

My financial background: None. I can't speak to it's suitability for experts, but it's accessible to the motivated lay person.

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