Collected from speeches and editorials by Grant, the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer
, these essays are remarkable for their prescience: two years before subprime mortgages collapsed, the author described them as “not one borrower left behind” and when other analysts were worried about the effect of a Fed interest rate increase, he foresaw that the “risk to house prices lies not with interest rates but with lending standards.” Other chapters attack bubbles in stocks and the dollar with erudition and wit (“Economics, mistaking itself for physics, is wont to turn up its nose at history, but the past has much to teach”; “as dress on Wall Street has become more casual, so have the monetary arrangements... the gold standard and swallowtail coats have given way to Greenspan and open-neck shirts”). It's hard to imagine reading any other investment newsletter even a week after publication. Grant's
is the exception; it paints on a larger canvas and is infused with the author's generous spirit and rich sense of humor. (Nov.)
