If there is one thing the “Great Crash of 2008” should have taught us, it’s that understanding political events and actors is not enough. We need to understand economic and financial ones even more. While the need for Americans to improve their “financial literacy” is often touted, there is a greater need for us to understand how business shapes our world.
That’s the premise of The Best Business Writing 2012, recently released by Columbia University Press. Business news can no longer be left to the experts; its importance to every person in their daily lives means it is no longer an optional interest.
Over its history, there has been a continual broadening of business news, particularly in the past decade. While it may once have suffered an image problem of belonging to the business elite or those in the know, the new media, in particular, has made it everyone’s domain.
Business writing includes such well-known dailies as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Economics and business have also become a regular part of such disparate sources as Rolling Stone and Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Certainly, it has been redefined by the rise of the Internet as well as other sources.
Business writing has been expanded to include almost any topic of interest from the stock market to housing projects.
To cover this diversity, this book of the best is divided into six sections: “Bad Business,” “The Financial System and Its Discontents,” “Over There,” “Politics and Money,” “The Big Picture” and “Corporate Stories.”
The authors are equally diverse in backgrounds and areas of expertise. While there are noted business names such as Paul Krugman and Gretchen Morgenson, one of the most intriguing pieces is by actor Hugh Grant, who turns the tables on a phone-hacking reporter by recording his conversation. The transcript forms the basis for an article that appeared in The New Stateman.
There are several articles of particular interest to Kentucky readers. “The Dark Lord of Coal Country,” by Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell, is a no-holds-barred look at Massey Energy’s former chief executive Don Blankenship. Calling him “the embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the business and politics of energy in America today,” Goodell reveals the details of the dirty side of the coal industry.
Blankenship made headlines when 29 miners were killed in April 2010 in the Massey-owned and -operated Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. Goddell looks at the man who, in his words, “pursues naked self-interest and calls it patriotism, who buys judges like cheap hookers, treats workers like dogs, blasts mountains to get at a few inches of coal and uses his money and influence to ensure that America remains enslaved to the 19th century idea that burning coal equals progress.”
This is not just a West Virginia story. In November of last year, the Labor Department moved to shut down a Massey mine in Kentucky that had been cited for more than 2,000 safety violations in the past two years.
There are other business ramifications. Citing pressure from various groups, lenders such as JPMorgan Chase have declined financing for mountaintop-removal operations. Corporate shareholders such as the California State Teachers’ Retirement System are re-examining their holdings.
In “A Case of Shattered Trust,” Raquel Rutledge and Rick Barrett examine the FDA’s failure to shut down a health-care products manufacturer cited for multiple violations. Some of the products, produced by The Triad Group, were infected with a deadly bacterium.
“What’s alarming ... is the FDA had evidence that Triad was screwing up, talked to them about it, but did not force the issue,” said Larry Smith, president of the Institute for Crisis Management in Louisville, Ky.
“Can the World Still Feed Itself?” by Brian M. Carney reviews the relationship between the food market and the energy market. Citing Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the chairman and former CEO of Nestlé, the world’s largest food-production company, he considers questions about food, with topics ranging from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to ethanol and water conservation.
Can we feed the anticipated nine billion people expected in the world by midcentury? Yes, Brabect-Letmathe answers, “but only if we let the market do its thing.”
Also included in this collection is Warren Buffet’s oft-cited column from The New York Times, titled “Stop Coddling the Super Rich.” In this op-ed, Buffet revealed that he pays a lower percentage of his taxable income to taxes than any of the other 20 people in his office.
If you haven’t read this column, it is an eye-opener — as is the entire superb collection. If you want to improve your own current business IQ, you couldn’t do better than to use this book as your tutor.