Talk:The Ascent of Money

Balance out the reviews?

First, I love this book, which is why I ended up here. Second, the reviews section is too glowing. The Economist, for instance, largely panned the book, suggesting others in its place and calling it uneven - we only pull out the nice things. The book stands on its own merits well enough to not need to whitewash the bad. Alaynestone (talk) 16:38, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I have to agree, the review section seriously needs to be corrected. The Guardian and The Economist both basically panned the book. I tried to balance out the Reception section, but I suppose there's still work to be done here. Wutschwlllm (talk) 15:31, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks to the people who started this page

I wanted to thank the fine people who started this with great detailed descriptions of each chapter in the two-hour version. I may have killed the style for now by adding info about the four hour version. It is great over all. My biggest complaint is how he tries to connect the old Mississippi land bubble to being able to predict the collapse of Enron. Before it happened there were reasons to be skeptical. They seem more obvious now, like how could Enron invent a new set of derivative markets and then keep them when a large institutional bank like GS with better credit could scoop it up. Or for Worldcom, could you understand their cash flow?

It may also have lacked adequate coverage of the effect of different demographic bubbles on economics and globalism. Countries with large populations around their 40s are at their peak economically. Countries with declining birth rates and an aging population will have a declining economy. Less people competing for the same land, etc. equals declining prices. --Dgroseth (talk) 22:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Prediction

"he predicts a financial crisis as a result of the world economy and in particular the United States using too much credit" Can you really say, he predicted the crisis, when it was published in November 2008? 80.121.76.28 (talk) 22:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you referring to how late in the crisis it came out? e.g. couldn't he have said it earlier? or wasn't it a bit after the fact? I think he is trying to explain the size and nature of the problem. I don't want to add my opinions to the article. I want to avoid adding WP:ORIG --Dgroseth (talk) 04:25, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

It's well known in economic commentary for "predictions" to become self-fulfilling if enough people even discuss or debate the ideas/predictions/ controversy etc.Politicians follow the day to day news cycles and try to spin the events to their advantage or justify their position and decisions.In the business of writing economics or history, hard facts must be the basis of the discussion.I'm biased as a "fan" of Mr.Fergusons television series and appreciate his brevity and erudite use of information.(Facebook fansite for the Ascent of Money was me).The ongoing debate to clarify facts and theory is worthy of this wikipedia article.This is a hot topic that merges the blather of the financial markets with discipline of academia.Keep it up.ThanksErn Malleyscrub (talk) 02:25, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the anon above is correct, the language in the lede is too strong. I watched and enjoyed the miniseries and I got the impression that he was explaining the credit crisis rather than predicting it.DavidRF (talk) 02:38, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Subtitle variations in different versions

• The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World - I sometimes see this title online for text listings of both the book and some video versions.

• The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World - The full title in my electronic version of the book and pictures of books and long videos.

• The Ascent of Money: Boom and Bust - The full title on pictures of the shorter two-hour US version only.

• Ascent of Money: Boom and Bust - Online text listings for the two-hour US version often do not include the initial article The.

I found the subtitle variations for the different videos to be confusing before, and thus confused versions earlier. --Dgroseth (talk) 19:34, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

The book

I am suggesting this section . The book was well received. THis can contain reviews, suggestions, comments Sanjiv swarup (talk) 06:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)