Money Makes the World Go Around: One Investor Tracks Her Cash Through the Global Economy, from Brooklyn to Bangkok and Back (Hardcover)

by Barbara Garson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Many of us consider ourselves fairly knowledgeable about stock and fund investment options, but then maintain some sort of vague money-in-a-sock vision of the money we deposit in our bank accounts. While the notion that it physically sits in the bank's drawers is obviously ludicrous, determining what actually happens to the money seems impossible in our age of split-second electronic transfers and a complicated global economy. In Money Makes the World Go Round however, Barbara Garson has done just that, tracking a one-time deposit on its dizzying journey around the world.

Using half her publisher's advance for this book, Garson deposits $29,500 in a small, family-owned bank in Millbrook, New York. Putting her intrepid journalistic sensibilities to work, Garson then attempts to follow the money as it's put to use, flowing out of her small bank, through much larger ones, and in and out of the accounts and pockets of companies and their employees in the U.S. and Asia. She tracks down players on all levels of this green path--from a senior vice president on Chase's Federal Funds desk to a seafood importer in Brooklyn, and from the head honcho of a Japanese construction firm building an oil refinery in Thailand to a jellyfish exporter in Malaysia--and tells their stories in vivid, colorful detail. Doing more than just stating that the lives of many are affected by the actions of a few, Garson interviews people at the farthest reaches of her money's journey, like fishermen in a small Malay village, a Burmese pipe fitter working illegally in Thailand, and Filipino maids in Singapore. She explores the consequences of a mutual fund investment in a similar manner, taking one of the fund's investments, Sunbeam, and following "Chainsaw Al" Dunlop's restructuring of the company from the top (shareholders) to the bottom (workers at a furniture plant in Tennessee).

Garson, author of All the Livelong Day and The Electronic Sweatshop, is a lively and engaging writer. She appears to hold little interest in the value of her deposit for herself, but is oozing with curiosity about what money can and can't do for its lenders, borrowers, makers, and users around the world. While she tends to go into excruciating detail in relaying the circuitous routes she takes to get to the right people and the conversations she has with them (even recording the phone conversations they have while she is with them), this very detail serves to remind the reader of the convoluted pathways down which her money travels. An intriguing narrative on a subject we usually only think of in numbers. --S. Ketchum

From Publishers Weekly
In this high-concept book, Garson (The Livelong Day) puts her publisher's advance against royalties into a local bank account and a mutual fund, then sets out to trace "a few representative uses" of the money around the world as it flows into large financial centers and out to developing countries. Garson, who has written for Newsweek, the New York Times and Harper's, brings a sharp and sympathetic reporter's eye to the effects of the global banking system on real people. In a conversation with a Thai laborer at a Singapore oil refinery in which her money is invested, she learns the costs and benefits of his situation: due to strict migration laws, he cannot leave Singapore to visit his family, but he makes twice what he would at home and is saving money. In another passage, Garson investigates a building permit granted to Caltex, an oil company to which her bank lent money, for a fifth refinery in Thailand, when government policy only allows for only four. While the regional manager insists truthfully that his office does not engage in bribery, she finds that the policy was suddenly reversed and that "some of [her] deposit went into a Thai minister's son-in-law's salary, and some went into U.S. political-campaign funds." From corporate boardrooms and government offices to the streets of Singapore and Penang, Garson navigates disorienting details with skill. Her spirit of adventure and compassionate character sketches elevate the book from a painless lesson in global economics to a minor masterpiece.Agent, Joy Harris. (Feb. 12)Forecast: If Garson is as engaging in person as she is on the page, and her publisher succeeds in booking her widely, this entry will cut a wide swath.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 342 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition, First Printing edition (February 12, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670866601
• ISBN-13: 978-0670866601
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,426,264 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where does the money go?, March 14, 2001

By	Stephen L. Slavin "Steve Slavin" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having taught economics for over 30 years, I am still amazed that many students think that when they deposit their savings in a bank, the money doesn't just sit there. Now I can refer them to Barbara Garson's book, so that they can learn just where those dollars go. Although the book is virtually jargon-free, her lucid explanations of the inner workings of international finance would satisfy even the most traditional economist. My only problem reading the book is that I find it so entertaining that I tend to forget that it is a very serious treatise on international finance. In the forthcoming sixth edition of my principles of economics text, I expect to very liberally quote from "Money Makes the World Go Round."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book on investing that connects the head to the heart, March 12, 2002

By A Customer

As a fairly intelligent individual who has never taken an economics course, I've been trying to make sense of the world of investing on my own. The author takes us on her own journey to do the same, and in the process we come to meet the faces and the people behind the whole process. She goes about it with a very open-minded, down to earth approach, and for the most part, doesn't draw a lot of her own conclusions. Rather, she lets you come to your own. At last, some information on investing that is more than just numbers and returns. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is looking for where to invest their money, or is just trying to understand how "money makes the world go around." After having read the book, now I can go to the Reuters newswires and have an understanding of just what is behind the latest news announcements, what they mean in real terms for real people. The book has made me think twice about what it means to be chasing the high returns, and what implications that may have on the lives of others. I found this book to be very heart opening, and my compassion for the world is immense.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy the book because you'll feel good that she's investing, March 2, 2002

By	"kevchicago" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

Buy the book because you'll feel good that she's investing the profits.

The power of this book is that it critiques the global financial system without demonizing the individuals involved. It's a lesson that the "anti-globalists" should take to heart. We can protest all we want outside of WTO meetings but things won't change until we get more caring and fair rabble rousers a la Garson inside of the global financial institutions. Get a start on that insider career by reading this book.