The Mystery of Money: Understanding the Modern Financial World

Harlan Green “Unpacks” the Money Metaphor--Book Review by Mark Whitehurst / CASA MAGAZINE

Yelling “Show me the money!” usually only works in the movies, but Harlan Green’s down to earth book, The Mystery of Money: Understanding the Modern Financial World, recently published by Publishing by the Seas, Inc., opens new doors into how the realm of money really works.

Creating perspectives on how money functions and doesn’t function is what local author and columnist Green accomplishes with this book, which is a quick and easy read at 85 pages.

“Demystifying financial information for readers has always been my goal over the past thirteen years amid the breathtaking real estate and credit bubbles that have transformed both domestic and world financial markets,” writes Green in The Mystery of Money’s introduction.

Over the years, Green has been a financial columnist for The Huffington Post; Popular Economics Weekly; CASA Magazine; and the Santa Barbara News Press.

Using common knowledge and experiences that were the result of the Great Recession and the Subprime Debacle as a starting point, Green provides readers with a social connection to money. It’s a connection that continues to be disconcerting, and Green tells it like it is.

“The shocking truth was that much of the so-called ‘complexity’ was caused by willful obfuscation — the disguising of financial information via many exotic derivatives and insurance vehicles that were off the glance sheets of financial institutions,” Green explains.

Green’s explanations lead to key points of reference and how to negotiate and mediate definitions and ideas about money.

He literally opens up a discussion on the art of negotiation, using some of his personal experiences as a mortgage broker.

“The one Golden Rule of any negotiation is never to feel rushed into making a decision,” he comments.

Green moves through the classic view of Herd behavior; Imperfect Financial Markets; Decision-Making; Irrational Exuberance; Managing Big Data; Personality Cults and Charismatic CEOs; and the Mystery of Real Wealth in nine chapters and an introduction.

The book, The Mystery of Money: Understanding the Modern Financial World, will soon be available at local book stores and is available from Amazon.