The World's Best Book Summaries
Who are the Zulu and Xhosa? What is the history of the tension between the two communities? When comedian Trevor Noah was growing up in South Africa, the Zulu and Xhosa rivalry was strong and potentially deadly. We’ll briefly cover the history of the Zulu-Xhosa feud and look at how it affected Noah’s childhood.
“Big Food” is an influential industry–their positions as key economic players in the U.S. gives them influence in the government. But how closely tied are food and politics? And how does it affect American citizens? We’ll look at extended examples of ways the food industry influences policy, and we’ll cover how this affects you.
Who is The Big Short‘s Dr. Michale Burry? How did he predict the 2008 financial crisis, and what did he get out of it? Dr. Michael Burry of The Big Short fame is a medical doctor by training and an investor and hedge fund manager who predicted and profited from the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. We’ll cover Dr. Michael Burry’s background, the background of the financial crisis, and how Dr. Burry shorted the housing market.
What events led up to the 2008 bank bailout? Did Wall Street deserve to be bailed out? What was the true bank-bailout cost? Who paid it? We’ll cover the events leading up to the 2008 bank bailout (also known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act) and how it hurt the American taxpayer.
Maybe you’ve heard of mortgage-backed securities in relation to the 2008 financial crisis. But what are mortgage-backed securities? How do they differ from other investments? A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is essentially a bond, or debt instrument, that’s comprised of a bundle of home mortgages (often running into the thousands) that have been packaged together into a tradable asset. Learn the history of mortgage-backed securities and how they infiltrated Wall Street, becoming one of the main contributors to the 2008 financial crisis.
By 2050, 14 million people will have Alzheimer’s, which is a leading cause of death in the U.S. Alzheimer’s, a form of dementia, develops when the protein beta-amyloid forms plaque in the brain. Is there an “Alzheimer’s diet” that could keep you from being one of those 14 million people? Although there’s no definitive cause of Alzheimer’s, researchers agree that lifestyle factors such as diet play a role. Learn how adopting an Alzheimer’s prevention diet can help protect your brain and get suggestions on how you can smoothly incorporate more plant foods into your diet.
Who is Ben Hockett? How was he involved in the “big short” that profited from the 2008 financial crisis? Ben Hockett is a former Deutsche Bank trader who left Wall Street behind to trade derivatives from his home in Berkeley Hills. In 2006 he worked with investment company Cornwall Capital to short the housing market and profit from the 2007-2008 subprime mortgage crisis. In the movie The Big Short, Brad Pitt’s character Ben Rickert is based on Ben Hockett. We’ll cover Ben Hockett’s background, his major role in getting Cornwall Capital the recognition it needed to be a player on
What is specialty finance? What does it offer, and how is it risky? Did specialty finance loans contribute to the 2008 financial crisis? Specialty finance is the euphemistic name of financial industries that provide financial products and services to the least-creditworthy Americans, people who wouldn’t be able to get a loan from a traditional bank. Learn how the industry of specialty finance became lucrative and how its preying on uncreditworthy Americans contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.
What are the 3 stages of cancer development? Is there anything we can do to slow or reverse the progress of cancer in its early stages? The three stages of cancer development are initiation, promotion, and progression. We’ll cover what happens in each of the stages of cancer development and how cutting animal proteins from your diet may be the key to reducing your cancer risk at each of the first two stages.
What is a tranche in finance? How did they change the mortgage-backed securities market and make subprime loans desirable to investors? A tranche is a slice or portion of a security sold to investors. Learn how tranches work in finance, what their role in mortgage-backed securities is, and how they revolutionized these securities so quickly and dramatically that they laid the groundwork for the 2008 financial crisis.