FOOLPROOF

Is it ever going to be possible for us to be foolproof, or will humans always play the fool? One of the best-known journalists on economics explains the great irony of the global financial crisis and why good intentions often lead to disaster.

We have learned a staggering amount about human nature and disaster—yet we are continually unprepared for car crashes, floods, and financial crises. Partly this is because the very success we’ve had making life safer enables us to take more extreme, different risks. As our cities, transport systems, and financial markets become more interconnected and complex, so does the potential for disaster.

How do we stay safe? Should we? What if our attempts are exposing us even more to the very risks we are avoiding? Would acceptance of danger make us more secure? Is there such a thing as foolproof? Ip weighs the pros and cons of infallibility in this astonishing book. With insights from Larry Summers and Nicholas Taleb, this is a fascinating look at the world around us and how to navigate it as safely as possible – one big takeaway from the book for me was SPACE. Space around you physically – and space in the economic form of capital seem to be on the best bets towards keeping us safe.

Greg Ip is an award-winning journalist and the Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator. He’s spent two decades in financial and economic journalism, including eleven years at the Wall Street Journal and six years at The Economist. His first book, The Little Book of Economics, published by Wiley in 2010, has sold more than 28,000 hardcovers. We think we can do even better with this new book!