The Losing Game: Why You Can’t Beat Wall Street
Product Description
This is the book you MUST read to understand why your successful financial future requires not trusting Wall Street! Now, more than ever, you need a book to navigate you through this financial crisis. For decades, average Americans have been held captive in their financial lives by their limited knowledge of and an inherent trust in Wall Street, only to see that trust violated time and time again by a system that rewards greed and corruption. The Losing… More >>
Legalized gambling is always slanted towards the house. “The Losing Game: Why You Can’t Beat Wall Street” is a look at how Wall Street has cost Americans millions upon millions under the guise of ‘wise investment’. A cautionary tale, “The Losing Game” tells readers to look elsewhere to plan their financial future and their retirements. “The Losing Game” is well worth the read for those worried about their money in Wall Street.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is a conspiracy book about Wall Street. Like one of your father’s rants, this book goes on and on about the minus/sum game of Wall Street investing. Scott asserts early that Wall Street is nothing but a massive scam created merely to pull the hard earned money from the pockets of the common man. With constant references to Vegas, Scott wants you to conclude that Wall Street is nothing more than high societies version of casino gambling.
I can honestly say that by eighth grade, I knew that Wall Street was a place where people, with disposable income, went to purchase stock in corporations they hoped increased in value. I assumed, like any investment, those involved knew they were taking a risk and for some time, after their initial capital investment, they would be in arrears.
As an adult, once I began investing, I was certainly under no illusion that I was going to automatically reap huge windfalls simply for my stock purchases. Like when I borrowed money to start my corporation, it was years later before my loan was paid off and I began to profit from my idea and hard work.
What Mr. Scott forgets is that Wall Street is a nebulous institution. There is no Mafia family running the enterprise, as he would lead you to believe. As on any stage where competition takes place, there are those who play the game at the higher level. To deduce that Wall Street was conceived by a group or master race, who like puppeteers, pull the strings that easily rip off on a daily basis the hard earned money of working class people is nonsensical.
On a positive front, for the sake of the “newbie” investor, Mr. Scott explains how hedging works, details facts about derivatives, and gives a rudimentary assessment of the actual tracking methodology of the Dow Jones Index. His chapters on the meat and guts of how Wall Street works are the unhidden strengths of the book.
Had his book been slanted more towards simply helping out the uncertain investor, I believe Mr. Scott would have had a winner. Instead, the Losing Game comes across too much like your typical conspiracy tale, whereby, a lot of scandalous activity or sightings occur right in front of your eyes, yet you, or any one else but the author, ever sees it happening. In my opinion, the constant repitition of the author’s theme unnerves the reader and trips your concentration from focusing on the important subject matter at hand. And that’s a shame. For it’s there that Mr. Scott has a lot of good advice to give the investing public.
Rating: 3 / 5
I read this book expecting to see some grand scheme to show me how to make lots of money on Wall Street, or a bunch of fancy equations telling me why what I’m doing with my money is wrong. Thank goodness this is not what happened.
Finally, a book about the stock market for people that really don’t read a lot of financial books. The anecdotal style and down-hominess of the tone made me feel comfortable and it never felt like I was being preached to or lectured. It really made me think differenly about my money and what I do with it.
Wall Street is the biggest “get rich scheme” in the world, and now that I realize that I’ll just go to the river boat if I want to throw my money away instead of filtering into the hands of CEO’s and brokers.
I have told all of my friends about this book and am hoping to start a group where we invest our money collectively in our community, and help to keep our local economy going strong. That should be our focus in this recession, not bailing out the big wigs that got us here in the first place!
Rating: 4 / 5
I felt like this was a very timely book, given the recent revelation about the software stolen from Goldman Sachs and its ability to manipulate the markets.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book is designed for the average investor who doesn’t like reading financial books. It is presented in an easy-read style that keeps the reader engaged and yet educates them on how Wall Street can scam Americans. Even though this book was written before the scandals of Bernard Madoff and Allen Stanford, if you read this book, you’ll know exactly why this happens and why they and others have gotten away with it for so long.
This book is must-read if you have a 401 k, or similar, and are concerned about your financial future.
Rating: 5 / 5